


Let's try that again

by Unda



Category: One Piece
Genre: Crime Fighting, Ghosts, M/M, Psychic Abilities, anxiety disorders, socially awkward penguin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:27:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 54,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Psychic and Socially Awkward Penguin Zoro is just trying to get by in life without too many dead people bothering him. It's not like he wanted this or anything. But stupid pushy blond chefs don't take no for an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grey Day - Madness

A/n: This fic resulted from several things, the overwhelming urge to write because the other zosan things that I’m working on aren’t gelling right and also reading lots of memes, specifically about socially awkward penguin and the retail robin ones. So I present to you this… whatever it is. Enjoy the beginning, expect more updates soon!

 

Sanji is up on the ledge for what feels like forever. At first he feels incredibly confused and disorientated, he can’t remember why he’s up there and he can’t seem to get down, no matter what he tries he ends up right where he was without really remembering his previous attempt. He feels like a goldfish in a small bowl.

It’s a pretty bowl alright, the ledge is high up, really high. There’s a window behind him and below and before him is the sprawling view of the city, one that’s almost a full of hustle and bustle at night as it is during the day. During the day he watches people and the birds and at night the twinkling neon lights make a pretty sight.

After a while, he can’t remember how long - he’s seen a lot of sunrises, he starts to remember. He remembers a party, a nice one, one for him congratulating him on… something. He remembers cooking. He remembers an old man with a silly moustache. Then he remembers falling, fear, pain and darkness.

It takes him a fair while to realise that he’s dead. It’s only when he sees a dog peeing against a bench that he realises that he’s not pissed in forever. Then he realises that he’s not slept in what is probably weeks, or eaten, or spoken to anyone and good GOD he can’t remember the last time he smoked. It’s an awful thing to realise that you’re dead, especially when you have to be alive and conscious to experience it. Well, conscious at least.

He tries killing himself numerous times. The only place that he can seem to go is to fall off of the building, but he just falls through the ground and wakes up a moment or two later back on the ledge. If he tries to move too far from the window he feels an awful pull inside his heart and he eventually faints and winds up right where he started.

Sometime later a man slides the window open and steps out onto the high ledge. As his foot makes contact with the ledge Sanji hears a snap, like the sound a rubber band makes when it smacks you in the hand. Sanji feels something inside his chest reel. The man is shabbily dressed with stupidly green hair sticking up in crazy tufts in every direction, his face is tense but if you look past that he’s attractive. His eyes dart around furtively and when his eyes land on Sanji they stop there.

Sanji realises in one big elated emotion that the man can SEE him! Which he says as much in an excited gasp as he leaps to his feet. The green-head pales and he hastily backs out of the window, retrieving his foot from the ledge and slams the window so hard the glass rattles. Sanji darts through the wall after him and is surprised by the effortlessness of it. Before he had to work hours to do that and then he’d faint, not now though.

“I can’t see you!” The man shouts over his shoulder and beats a hasty retreat.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, if you couldn’t see me you wouldn’t be talking to me!” Sanji yells, chasing after him.

The green haired guy pauses at the bottom of the stairs with a despairing groan. He turns slowly and looks back up at Sanji who is halfway down the stairs after him. The guy awkwardly shoves his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and sighs.

“Look, this isn’t easy to hear but you’re dead okay?” he says up to him.

“Thanks, genius, I worked that out.” Sanji glowers at him from his position on the stairs.

The guy screws his eyes shut and tilts his head back muttering ‘of course not, that would be easy’. Sanji notices his earrings shining in one ear against the black of his hoodie.

“I didn’t jump.” Sanji blurts out. He hadn’t known that before now but as the words leave his mouth he’s certain of it.

“Yeah, I can tell. The suicide-ers tend to look… messed up. Deader that is.” The green haired guy answers uncomfortably.

“I… I think I was pushed.” Sanji adds as he walks down the last few stairs towards the other guy.

“Murder. Brilliant. I hate murders. Come on then, my name is Zoro.” Zoro announces and flicks his hood up and turns to leave. He strides quickly out of the building with Sanji in tow.

“I’m Sanji.” Sanji offers. Zoro grunts in response and keeps walking down the street. Sanji finds this rather rude but as other people look through him and even pass through him he starts to realise that perhaps Zoro is ignoring him because no one else can see him. Even he can concede that standing around talking to no one is pretty weird.

Sanji instead opts to survey this new guy, Zoro. He’s wearing scruffy jeans that are ripped and stained, they look like they’re incredibly worn out. His hoodie is also frayed at the wrists, if Sanji had to guess it’s something that the guy has done to it himself, perhaps he bites his cuffs or pulls at them. His shoes also are scruffy converses that look like they’re being held together with sheer willpower rather than thread, there’s even duct tape around the toe of one that’s been painted white in a horrible attempt to blend in. All in all the man looks scruffy and shifty.

Zoro eventually enters a building, unlocks the door and jogs up two flights of stairs before letting Sanji in another door and furtively shutting it behind the both of them. Zoro flicks his hood back down and turns the light on, it’s old and flickering.

“Come on then, let’s hear it.” Zoro sighs pulling his hoodie off and throwing it in the corner. He flops down on the sofa and looks at Sanji expectantly.

Sanji looks warily around the room, the place is a one-room dump, there’s dirty laundry around the place and the bin is full of fast food containers. The kitchen looks barely used except for all the dirty dishes piling up by the sink. There’s only one other door in this place which Sanji guesses leads to the guy’s bedroom, he’d bet it’s equally messed up. He knows that he’s dead and thus intangible but Sanji can’t help but smooth down his suit as if just being here might have mussed it.

“Hear what?” He asks with a frown, coming back to Zoro who looks like he belongs in this scruffy place.

“Your story, moron. How did you die, who do you think did it, what’s keeping you here? That sort of thing.” Zoro says rolling his eyes.

“Asshole, this is kind of new to me. I’ve not been dead before.” Sanji snaps irritably, he’s only here because Zoro is the first person to see him and now it seems that he can leave that damn ledge.

“You get used to it. Come on then.” Zoro sighs and rummages down the back of the sofa, eventually retrieving a notebook and pencil. Sanji sees Zoro write Sanji on the top and misspell it. He corrects the idiot which makes him blush in embarrassment, that makes Sanji feel a little more superior again.

“Where do I start?” Sanji asks and tries to sit down on the sofa next to Zoro. It takes a little effort not to fall through it but he manages.

“Tell me about yourself.” Zoro suggests, turning to that he can look at Sanji and write on the notepad on his knee. Despite his first impression of the man as scruffy, shifty and rude something makes Sanji pause. The man has kind eyes, he looks tired and a little unhappy but he seems to mean well.

“I was at a party…” Sanji begins slowly and as he speaks the memories come back a little. Beside him Zoro starts making notes in an untidy scrawl.

“It was for me, I think. Or, it felt like that. It wasn’t a birthday party, more like a celebration of accomplishment, I think I’d won something, or done something. I remember food, as in, I remember that I cook. I’m a chef. So… maybe it was something to do with that.” He continues.

“A graduation?” Zoro suggests.

“No but… similar.” He frowns. Why can’t he remember?

“I remember being by the window in the corridor where you found me. I was… arguing with someone. I think. I remember being angry. Then… I think I was pushed, out of the window. Then I don’t remember anything except being on that ledge for the longest time until you showed up.” Sanji answers.

“Any idea how long?” Zoro asks carefully.

“Weeks?” Sanji hazards a guess.

“Hm. Don’t worry about it. Time goes a little funny when you’re dead. Let’s see now.” Zoro says leaning over to pull a laptop out from under his sofa. He flicks the screen open and pulls up the internet. He types the name of the building into Google and the words “fell” and “death”. The search brings up a few news articles and the first one that Zoro opens has a picture of Sanji’s face on it.

That was taken at my birthday. Sanji remembers distantly.

“Hm… two weeks ago… tragic death, nineteen year old prodigy chef… death by falling. Presumed suicide. Oh, it was a cooking competition that you won, televised apparently. No suspicion of foul play.” Zoro skims and reads aloud.

“Why did you ask me all of that if you could just look it up asshole?!” Sanji snaps irritably.

“It’s important that you try to remember. They don’t think you were murdered and if you were then I need you to remember as much as you can.” Zoro smiles at him. Sanji finds himself momentarily struck by how much that smile changes the scruffy angry looking teen’s face.

“You’ll help find out who killed me?” He asks hopefully.

“Sure. I’d guess that’s what’s keeping you here. I can’t just leave you walking the earth alone for all eternity now, can I?” Zoro smiles gently.


	2. A Sadness Runs Through Him - The Hoosiers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is a little musical in that the chapter names are songs that you can listen to for that chapter. Entirely optional but hey.

Zoro is searching on his laptop for other reports about his death, trying to find out why the police aren’t investigating. Sanji didn’t really have any idea of how long he’d been there half aware on that ledge and when he tried to remember details they slipped through his now intangible fingers. It felt so good though, just being seen, it seemed to make him more real.

He’s sitting down on the sofa by Zoro, or rather, trying to. He can’t really feel the thing properly and if he doesn’t focus he either ends up floating above it or sinking through it. Curiously he looks over at Zoro who momentarily pauses typing and looks back expectantly.

“What?” He questions with an impetuous little frown.

“Nothing.” Sanji answers quickly. Zoro rolls his eyes and returns to searching online, all reports though seem to show that they believe Sanji offed himself.

With a sigh, or something that sounds like a sigh since he doesn’t actually breathe now, he looks at his hand. Holding it up he can see through it a little, he’s a paler version of himself, his skin tone is still there but washed out. He focuses and manages to make himself look a little more solid so that he can’t see through himself. He pushes his focus the other way and he becomes almost invisible. Completely invisible apparently as Zoro jolts and looks right through him in surprise.

“Sanji?” He calls out, his gaze sweeping across the room and right through Sanji.

Sanji drops his focus again and reappears making Zoro startle slightly. His scowl becomes decidedly less amused which, even less to Zoro’s amusement, amuses Sanji immensely. At Sanji’s laughter Zoro sulkily returns to his trawling of newspaper articles.

Curiously he reaches his semi-transparent hand out and touches Zoro’s shoulder, he finds the first real amount of resistance there that he’s found since he died. He can touch Zoro! Zoro raises an eyebrow at him but says nothing and continues working. Curious Sanji pushes harder and focuses, his hand slips through Zoro’s arm and into his chest with only a mild amount of resistance it’s a little like putting your hand through warm jelly.

“GAH! Stop that!” Zoro yelps, backing away from Sanji quickly.

“Does it hurt?” Sanji asks curiously.

“No, but it’s not nice. Just like this.” Zoro snaps and kicks his shitty converses right through Sanji. Sanji’s body swirls mistily around Zoro’s leg and it makes Sanji feel cold and a little sick. Zoro removes his foot and glares at Sanji.

“Now cut it out.” He says firmly.

“Eesh, fine. No need to be a dick about it.” The cook huffs to himself.

“Try using your time to remember what happened to you. Can you remember who you argued with for example? That’s probably the person who killed you.” Zoro sighs sitting up fully again and levelling his dark eyes at him.

"It was with a man, I know that for certain." Sanji answers unwaveringly.

"You remember it?" the other man smiles slightly looking hopeful. Sanji supposed that if he remembers more it makes Zoro's job a little easier.

"No, but I'd never get in an argument with a woman and I’d certainly never fight with one." He asserts confidently.

"Not ever?" Zoro questions curiously.

"I'd rather die!" the cook snaps indignantly.

"Maybe you did." Zoro says quietly.

Sanji finds himself reeling a little at that. Surely a woman wouldn’t have killed him? He’d never have said anything so despicable to a delicate lady to make her feel like she should shove him out of a window! It had to have been a man. But who? He screws his eyes up and tries to replay the night in his head. He can still only remember fragments, Zeff’s proud smile, the announcement of the TV judges saying that he’d won, the bustle of the party. After that… he remembers more that he had an argument than the argument itself, then just the sensation of falling and pain.

When he returns his attention to the green-haired guy he’s slouched into the sofa staring up at the ceiling with a vacant look on his face as he chews the end of the pencil in his mouth.

“What I want to know…” He says slowly,

“Is why the cops don’t think that anything was off about your death. I mean, you don’t exactly seem like the type. I know that you didn’t kill yourself, you don’t look like someone who did and I’ve never met a jumper who didn’t know that they jumped. Met one who didn’t realize that they succeeded but that’s different.” Zoro muses.

“I’d never kill myself. Why would I even want to?” Sanji agrees.

“Well, suicide is a solution to a problem. Depression, financial trouble, broken heart, you get the picture. Any of that apply to you? Would the police have any reason to assume that there was a reason for you to kill yourself?” Zoro answers with a shrug and looks to Sanji for an answer.

“No, nothing like that.” He answers flatly. His life had frankly been going pretty awesome, until it… wasn’t going at all.

Zoro checks his watch and his lips move slightly as he counts. Sanji rolls his eyes, this guy is his only hope?

“Yeah, I can swing by the police station before work. See if I can’t find some answers for you.” Zoro says leaping up and swinging a tatty backpack over his shoulder. At a loss of anything else to do Sanji follows him and gets ignored in the street again. That said though people seem to give Zoro a bit of a wide berth anyway, almost like they would if he was walking along looking like he was talking to no one, perhaps people can sense weird. And, well, Zoro’s some sort of ghost-seeing psychic, that’s pretty weird. Besides the guy looks like he’s taken clothes that hobos have turned down.

“God, I would kill for a cigarette.” Sanji says to himself rather than Zoro since Zoro can’t talk to him right now. Zoro glances over his shoulder quickly at him though and then ducks into an alleyway.

Zoro leans against the wall, his lean frame huddled in the shadows. He looks at Sanji calculatingly through low lidded eyes.

“Promise not to abuse this in my apartment if I tell you this?” Zoro says quietly.

“I- sure?” Sanji frowns not understanding what’s going on.

“You smoke right? Or, you did? Since when?” Zoro asks slowly.

“Long before I was legal to, why? I didn’t die of lung cancer Zoro, I died from faceplanting into the pavement from fifteen stories up.” He replies tartly and glares at Zoro for his insensitivity.

“Check your pockets, or wherever it was that you kept your cigarettes.” Zoro orders him.

Sanji and Zoro stare at each other solidly for a few moments before Sanji relents and pats himself down. To his surprise he feels the outline of his lighter in his breast pocket, in wonder he puts his hand into his jacket and feels the warm edges of his lighter. He pulls it out, the silver case glinting translucently in the half-light of the alleyway. Miraculously his other pocket also contains a pre-rolled cigarette and his stash of tobacco and rolling papers.

He makes an undignified squeak of glee and lights up a cigarette relishing the feel of the smoke in his lungs – well, not his lungs but, oh screw it. He doesn’t care where or even how the hell he’s smoking when he’s dead, none of this makes any sense so he’s not going to start questioning shit now. His pleasure must show on his face because a smile is quirking at the edge of Zoro’s narrow lips.

Abruptly Zoro pushes away from the wall and quickly walks back out onto the street. Breezing along Sanji follows Zoro, careful to stay in his wake so that people don’t walk through him, that was unpleasant enough the first time.

 

When they arrive at the police station a sour faced little man glowers at Zoro. Sanji wonders if he recognises him.

“I’m here to see Captain Smoker.” Zoro states as he reaches the desk.

“You’re a civilian, we’ve explained this to you before. You can’t just waltz in here and demand to see an officer because you just feel like it.” The officer states. So he does recognise Zoro then, apparently the man has been here before looking to see this ‘Captain Smoker’.

Sanji waits for Zoro to say something to this but Zoro just stands there silently, waiting patiently. Not that the officer has called this guy to come down, but Zoro’s waiting as if he had.

“Go away.” The officer on the desk says to Zoro after an uncomfortable minute or two.

Zoro stays put and just stands patiently at the desk.

The officer stares back coldly at Zoro.

Zoro taps his fingers idly on his thigh and his decrepit shoes squeak on the floor when he curls his toes. More minutes pass.

“He’s not in. So, you can leave now.” The officer adds to the silence of the room.

Zoro stands there silently and unmoving not breaking his gaze with the officer.

“What are you doing Zoro? He said that he’s not here, you’re just being creepy.” Sanji insists, touching Zoro’s arm hesitantly. The corner of Zoro’s mouth twitches into a small grin at Sanji’s words, the officer behind the desk actually flinches at that.

He quickly picks up the phone and tries to look away from Zoro but the guy’s gaze seems to be hypnotic to the guy who is calmly watching him.

“O-officer Smoker, that creepy kid is back again!” The man squeaks down the phone. The man on the other end of the phone says something and the officer puts the phone down. The officer starts shakily giving directions but Zoro is already marching off in his shitty shoes through the shitty door.

Sanji follows the green-head through the maze of cubicles. Okay, that was strange. Apparently Zoro gets what he wants by being weird. Zoro abruptly stops at the desk of a large grey-haired man who’s looking at Zoro like he’s the last thing that he wants to see, ever. Which Zoro probably is on balance. The guy is huge and he looks ridiculous in his tiny cubicle filled with shitty papers and a computer that looks like it might be older than Sanji is.

“Sanji’s death. Apparently you’re not investigating, it’s not suspicious?” Zoro blurts out.

“What’s suspicious is the way you show up at my desk after almost every goddamn tragic death. You’re like some creepy angel of death.” The man says scowling at Zoro.

“Well- if you did your job right then I wouldn’t have to.” Zoro says unevenly, his eyes sweeping around the room nervously.

“Fuck you. The death isn’t suspicious, now get lost Nancy Drew.” Smoker growls.

“It wasn’t a suicide, he was pushed. He didn’t kill himself, so why aren’t you investigating?” Zoro insists loudly, a little too loudly in fact if the stares that Zoro draws is anything to go by. Zoro seems to notice and reddens a little.

“There wasn’t any evidence of a struggle, which you would get if you tried to push a healthy young lad like that out of a relatively small window like that.” Smoker sighs, pulling out a chair for Zoro which the green-head awkwardly dithers between sitting in and not before clumsily folding himself into the chair.

Sanji looks Zoro over, he’s got a nice frame on him, if he was more athletically inclined Zoro could really be ripped with that body type. As it is Zoro looks like he’s spent his entire life indoors practically starving to death, he’s skinny and uncoordinated. Sanji finds himself glad that Zeff got him involved in kickboxing as a kid. He might be skinny himself but he’s all muscle, not as Zeff frequently asserted a ‘long streak of nothin’. Or… he was. Now he’s just ecto-plasm or whatever.

“No blood on the windowsill or anything?” Zoro questions carefully.

“Oh gee, now that you mention it, that might be indicative of a struggle mightn’t it? Why, thank you Sherlock! No, there was no sign of a struggle.” Smoker repeats, whapping Zoro on the head with his newspaper.

Zoro looks up at Sanji and frowns.

“Maybe… maybe he was already half out of the window.” Zoro says slowly.

“Was he trying to kill himself or not kid? Make your mind up.” Smoker sighs irritably.

“Maybe… maybe he was smoking. Leaning out of the window to do it, so that he didn’t have to go all the way down to the bottom of the building, then someone pushed him.” Zoro says looking at Sanji’s breast pocket where he pulled the lighter and cigarettes.

Smoker’s face freezes and the man spins in his swivel chair to pull a file out of the filing cabinet crammed into the man’s tiny cubicle. He pulls out a manilla file and slaps it onto his desk, he flicks it open and Sanji spies a picture of him at his birthday paperclipped to the front page. Smoker leafs through a few photos one of which grosses Sanji out, both because he now knows what someone looks like when they chew pavement after a fifteen story drop and because he knows that that was him. Smoker stops on one photo and pulls it to the top. It’s a rolled cigarette that’s burnt down to the end but half smoked so the half that remains is mostly cigarette-shaped ash.

Zoro apparently spies this as well because he leans forward to offer his latest theory.

“He must have dropped it when he was pushed. If he was killing himself who jumps before they’ve finished their last smoke? He doesn’t seem like the type to waste half of a cigarette.” Zoro points out. Sanji nods fervently in silent agreement.

“He wasted himself Zoro. Look, I know that you feel like I let you down when I investigated your parents murders but trying to solve every suspicious death won’t bring them back. Not all deaths are unsolved murders Zoro.” Smoker says gently, laying his large hand on Zoro’s shoulder.

“It’s not about that! Sanji didn’t kill himself, I know he didn’t! Now tell me what you need to re-open the case!” Zoro snaps, jerking away from under the policeman’s touch.

Smoker sighs and looks at the scowling teen in silence for a few moments before turning back to glance at the picture of Sanji’s last cigarette suspiciously.

“At this point? We’d need means, motive and opportunity from whoever did this, if anyone did. All our suspects had witnesses saying that they were there at the time of the death. A confession is what we’d really want, with more people than you saying that you heard it.” Smoker sighs.

Zoro nods quickly and stands, nearly knocking over the tall half-dead pot plant in his haste. He dithers at the entrance to Smoker’s cubicle before turning back to smoker.

“Thanks, or whatever.” Zoro mumbles before dashing off. Smoker stares after the retreating back of the green-haired weirdo before rolling his eyes and grumbling under his breath about how he’s not paid enough for this shit. Sanji glides through a wall as a short cut and comes back out into the reception at the same time that Zoro makes it out. He follows Zoro through the door.

Zoro is glancing at his watch and Sanji remembers that the guy has work after this. He glides along the street after Zoro. He thinks about what Smoker said, Zoro’s been bothering him since his parents died, correction, since his parents were murdered. Sanji wonders if Zoro could see ghosts before his parents died or if it was a result of the event. Did Zoro see his parent’s ghosts? Did he try to solve their murders to put their spirits to rest like he’s doing with him?

“Hey… so… I’m sorry about your parents.” Sanji says eventually.

Zoro’s shoulders tense and he stops in the street.

“Don’t.” Zoro breathes quietly so that no one else can hear him, Sanji even struggles to catch it.

“I just mean, it can be hard and I just-” Sanji starts, reaching his hand out to Zoro.

“Don’t!” Zoro snaps spinning and swiping his arm through Sanji’s dispersing him like mist and giving him that creepy cold feeling again.

“And don’t follow me either! Go back to mine and wait there!” Zoro adds loudly. Sanji glances around and notices some people decidedly not looking at Zoro and rushing along their way to get away from the crazy guy.

“Okay, sorry.” Sanji says holding his hands up. Zoro nods once and strides off again into the night, leaving Sanji alone and dead outside the police station.


	3. Give me novocaine - Green Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is Give me novocaine - green day

Sanji doesn't follow Zoro to work that night, or the other nights. Partially out of respect for the man's request (well, order) and partially because he doesn't much care what the grass-brain does for a living.

Sanji considers going to see Zeff in his free time but he doesn't think that he can handle that alone. There are two possibilities, either Zeff will be fine - which would break Sanji's heart a little because though he and the old man never talked about feelings with each other he hopes the man considers him a son, finding out otherwise would be awful. The other possibility is that Zeff is crushed with grief and without Zoro there to translate he won't be able to help, and that would be torture. So, it’s best to stay away for now.

Instead he floats about people watching, he sees a couple of other ghosts stuck to things like he had been to the window ledge. They never seem able to see him though so he lets them be. He even finds his gravestone one evening. It doesn't say anything on it except his name and dates but it is nice and there are plenty of flowers, many of them fresh. There're also a collection of kitchen utensils in a vase which are clearly from the guys at the Baratie, which makes him smile.

When he's not at work Zoro manages to compile a list of everyone who was at the party the night that he died and the staff who were working as well. None of the names leap out at Sanji as the person who killed him, he's got a rather irritating mental block about that. Zoro explains that it's something to do with the conversion of short term to long term memory being interrupted by pavement in the brain at high speed. Sanji thinks that he's an insensitive jerk but concedes his point.

Zoro is sitting on the floor with his laptop on a coffee table in front of him and his hand holding his cheek up as he tries to focus on the monotonous task of going through every guest to see if they have any kind of criminal past that might suggest murder. Sanji is behind him lying on the sofa and trying to focus on not falling through it. He's pretty impressed with Zoro, although the man has turned up nothing of importance he's spent ages at it the last few days. Any time that the man isn't sleeping or working he's researching for Sanji. At first the cook had thought that it meant that Zoro wasn't very good but he was starting to appreciate that it meant that Zoro was working very hard and not giving up despite the difficulty of Sanji's case.

Sanji watches the green head working on his laptop as he scrolls through page after page of search results. His face is lit up from the pale light of the screen. The guy isn't pale exactly but Sanji suspects that that's genetic rather than from any time spent outdoors. In fact Sanji has hardly seen the man out during the day. He works the graveyard shift wherever it is that he works so he's asleep during the middle of the day and spends the rest of the time indoors working for Sanji.

"You've been at this for a long time." Sanji says eventually.

"When I find something I'll go investigate, but until then I gotta do this, sorry if I'm boring you." Zoro says dryly.

“That’s not it, don’t be an asshole. No, I just meant your friends must think you’ve disappeared off of the face of the earth lately. I appreciate this and all but it’s not like I’m getting any deader here.” Sanji points out. Really, it’s been odd, he’s not even seen Zoro call anyone. Unless the guy spends all his time at work calling his friends, which given the hours that he works is unlikely, then the man’s been almost a hermit since he started helping him. 

“It’s fine.” Zoro says dismissively and glances at his watch. 

“When did you say I should go see Zeff?” Zoro asks suddenly and looks over at Sanji and effectively derailing Sanji’s train of thought.

“About nine.” Sanji answers trying to work out the best time to catch Zeff between the lull after dinner but before the hectic hour of paperwork set in. 

“Better leave now then.” Zoro says flashing him a bright little grin and standing up quickly. Zoro quickly gathers his shitty looking things together and leaves the worn out property quickly. It takes Sanji a while to direct him there, Zoro somehow has got to this stage of his life without being able to tell the difference between left and right reliably. 

The outline of the Baratie looms into view and Sanji feels nervous. He doesn’t know how he’ll feel being in there without being able to be seen by anyone. He doesn’t know how he’ll deal with being home and knowing that he’ll never sleep there again, never laugh with his friends, never sit in a comfortable silence with Zeff again. Sanji finds his eyes brimming with tears. God, this whole thing isn’t fair, he didn’t do anything to deserve to die, he had so much to live for. And now he was separated from his family again, he’d already lost his biological parents and now he had to lose Zeff as well, or rather Zeff lost him, but it meant that he couldn’t be part of the man’s family anymore. 

When Sanji comes back to himself he realises that Zoro has paused by his side and is very deliberately not looking at Sanji sniffling to himself. Sanji can’t help but wonder if this reaction is normal, if Zoro knew that he would tear up. He coughs awkwardly and tries to think of something to say.

“So, don’t tell him you’re a cop or anything. He hates cops. Don’t tell him you’re a reporter either, he hates them even more.” Sanji says loudly to cover his earlier embarrassment. 

“What should I tell him then?” Zoro asks flatly, giving Sanji an incredulous look.

“Tell him you’re my friend, moron.” Sanji shoots back, goodness, is he going to have to do all the thinking here or what?

“But- he’s never met me, and I don’t think he’d believe-” the green head starts to protest.

“Just do it!” Sanji snaps and kicks through Zoro’s back, his leg scything through Zoro’s body like butter. Zoro yelps and stomps off to the Baratie sulkily.

The Baratie is just as Sanji remembers it, warm and full of life, just not his anymore. On Sanji’s directions Zoro makes his way to the back of the restaurant. Sanji spots Zeff before Zoro does, he’s gruffly ordering Patty to do something just as always. If Sanji still had one his heart would be in his throat. Zoro works out who Zeff is without Sanji telling him and makes his way nervously over to the head chef.

“Oi, you lost boy? You’re not supposed to be back here, scram.” Zeff orders sharply, scowling at Zoro from under his comically tall hat.

“Are you Zeff?” Zoro asks, undeterred. 

“What’s it to you?” Zeff says narrowing his eyes suspiciously. 

“I’m not a cop, or a reporter or anything. I’m…” Zoro hesitates, “I’m his friend, I guess.” 

Sanji groans, of course, Zeff will totally buy that. This weirdo couldn’t possibly be a cop because he told me so! Sure. Eesh.

“You guess?” The chef comments, his eyes sharpening.

“I mean, I didn’t know him long but… well, we could have- I mean, we were-” Zoro flounders. Sanji smacks his palm against his head, god, this guy is going to be the death of him. AGAIN.

“Tell him you worked at the market.” Sanji says confident that only Zoro can hear him.

“I worked at the market! I mean, I still do, not right now obviously because I’m here.” Zoro says suddenly and a little more loudly than was really necessary. 

“Is that so? What’s your name kid?” the old man asks, his voice unreadable. Sanji prays that Zeff actually buys Zoro’s incompetent lying, he really needs Zeff’s help here.

“Zoro.” The moss-brain answers instantly, apparently pleased to have a question that he can truthfully answer.

“He never mentioned you.” Zeff says simply with his arms folded across his chest. 

“Oh.” Zoro says quietly looking down at the floor.

Zeff stands there for a moment and looks at Zoro who, Sanji has to admit, looks a little pathetic. He’s clearly awkward and uncomfortable about lying to some nice old guy who’s lost someone but Sanji supposes that to someone who doesn’t know the truth Zoro looks a little… upset perhaps, lonely maybe. Zeff’s expression softens minutely and Sanji beams, he knows that look, Zeff has decided that he likes Zoro.

“Sorry about that. Sanji didn’t exactly talk about people much, I wouldn’t worry about it.” Zeff adds. 

“But… I’m sure you’re aware, Sanji is… he’s not exactly around to see visitors anymore.” The old man continues, his voice hardening at the end. Sanji winces a little, he can see that it hurt Zeff to say that, the same way that it hurt him to talk about losing his leg, but worse. 

“I know. I talked to the police, I know a guy there. And he said that they think that Sanji killed himself, that’s what the papers said too. But I can’t believe that, Sanji wouldn’t.” Zoro insists with certainty. Sanji finds Zoro’s faith in him reassuring. 

“He didn’t. Someone killed him.” Zeff says darkly.

“The guy I know, the cop, said that if I could find some proof that Sanji didn’t kill himself then he’d reopen the case and try to catch whoever did it. I’ve been trying to work out who might have done it from the guest list for the last few days but nothing is coming up. So I wanted to talk to you, see if you could give me a lead to try and figure this out.” Zoro says quickly, lighting up a little now that he’s telling the truth again. 

Zeff looks at Zoro quietly for a moment, clearly thinking the same thing that Sanji had been thinking lately. Why was this total stranger working so hard for someone he barely knew? Except Sanji knows it’s more than that, Zoro never knew him at all before he died. And if Zoro had kept ignoring him Sanji would have genuinely gone away, but he didn’t. Instead Zoro is spending all his time and, frankly embarrassing himself, just to help Sanji out.

“I can see why he liked you. You’re kind of cut from the same cloth, can’t stand to see a wrong go un-righted if you can do anything about it. Come on, help me load up the van and do my deliveries and I’ll answer your questions.” Zeff says with a soft little smile on his face. 

The old cook gestures for Zoro to follow him as he heads out the back of the building. Sanji frowns, what deliveries is Zeff talking about? It didn’t sound like he was expecting deliveries, but making them instead. The Baratie doesn’t do deliveries, it never has. When had this started? Sanji drifts behind his adopted father and his unlikely friend as Zeff leads them out the back. There’s a white van parked there with the back doors open and crates with lots of empty slots in the back of it.

“What’s this?” Zoro asks. Sanji’s glad because he’s no goddamned idea.

“It’s our delivery van. When Sanji was… Sanji used to sneak leftovers from the restaurant after hours and deliver them to the homeless. He was so sneaky about it I guess he thought no one knew, but we did. He was kind of modest about that sort of thing, I guess he didn’t want anyone thinking he did it for the praise. Truth is Sanji couldn’t stand to know that someone was going hungry.” Zeff says with a sigh.

“A week or so ago I decided that Sanji wouldn’t want that to stop just because he couldn’t do it anymore, so we bought the van and started making deliveries ourselves. I owe it to the kid to keep it up.” The old man says quietly as he pats the side of the van. 

Zoro walks around to the side of the van with Sanji trailing after him. On the side of the van is a line drawing of Sanji grinning and the words “Sanji’s kitchen” written on in blue letters. 

“Oh Zeff…” He breathes shakily. He wishes that he could have done this before, that he could have told the old man what he was doing. 

“It’s amazing. Sanji would be so happy.” Zoro smiles warmly at Zeff. 

Zeff just grunts at that, apparently having expressed enough emotions for the time being. Instead he gruffly orders Zoro to move his ass and help out. And so Zeff and Zoro load up the van with polystyrene boxes full of food that Patty and Carne are dishing up. Soon the van is filled with about a hundred meals all boxed up and kept warm. 

Zeff gestures for Zoro to hop into the van so the three of them climb in and set off. Sanji finds it a little hard keeping up with the motion of the van but he finds that if he holds onto Zoro’s arm he can manage it. 

“Can you think of anyone that might have done it?” Zoro eventually asks as he climbs back in after the second or third delivery. 

“Only that bastard that he was competing against. Sanji got people’s backs up a lot alright, but not enough to kill him. But that Creuset bastard had motive, Sanji stomped him on national television. Sanji’s just some nobody in the cooking world with everything to prove, it should have been easy for Creuset but Sanji utterly outranked him, a big national chef losing like that’s pretty bad. He’s who I’d have my money on.” Zeff growls, his grip tightening on the steering wheel.

“He had an alibi, his agent.” Zoro points out quietly.

“You believe her?" Zeff snorts disbelievingly.

"She could be lying for her client, but... I don't know. I get that Sanji embarrassed him but surely he'd have more to lose from killing Sanji than he would to gain. I mean, it's not like he got anything from Sanji's death." Zoro points out thoughtfully.

"It just means that you're missing something." Zeff grouses.

"Like what?" Zoro asks, hopping out of the van at the next stop and unloading several boxes of food.

"If I knew that you wouldn't have to be here." Zeff shoots back.

Zoro stays silent at that, apparently seeing the old man's point.

Sanji screws his eyes shut and buries his face in Zoro's shoulder. This just isn't fair; he'd give anything to have five minutes to talk to Zeff but even he can tell that the old man would react badly if Zoro claimed that he could pass on messages of the deceased. Zoro shivers slightly under him and Sanji wonders if he’s cold to the touch. Carefully Zoro’s dark eyes slide down to look at him questioningly. 

“I’m fine, it’s just this being dead and invisible thing sucks.” Sanji says hoarsely. 

"Do you ever wish that you could talk to people after they're gone?" Zoro asks quietly. Sanji's eyes snap open at that, Zoro's a goddamned genius!

Zeff states ahead in silence, his brow furrowed and moustache twitching in agitation. Zoro and Zeff unload another large delivery to another homeless shelter and climb back into the cab of the van in silence.

"I regret the last thing I said to him. The last words I said to him were in anger, we argued. You don't think when you argue with someone that it might be the last thing you say to them." Zeff says eventually.

"You argued with him?" Zoro asks straightening up in his seat.

"No, Zoro! It wasn't him, Zeff never would! Argument or not!" Sanji insists fervently and invisibly in the seat next to the psychic.

"I didn't kill him because of that, if you're going to go down the same route the police did." Zeff adds darkly.

Sanji recoils at that, Zeff had to find out that he'd died unpleasantly and then was hauled in as a suspect?

"I wasn't thinking that." Zoro states simply. Zeff and Sanji both watch Zoro carefully at that, Sanji can't see anything other than blunt honesty on the guy's face though. Evidently Zeff feels the same as he relaxes and continues the deliveries.

"So who was it?" Zeff asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Who was what?" Zoro asks confused.

"A man doesn't sympathize with someone who's lost someone this much unless they've been there." Zeff adds by way of explanation.

Zoro stares ahead rigidly and Sanji watches him carefully, he already knows about the guy's parents from overhearing what Smoker said.

"It's... hard to know where to begin." Zoro says quietly, clearly hoping to dodge the question.

"Parents?" Zeff guesses.

"Murder." Zoro answers tightly.

"Shit, sorry kid. So, you were adopted like Sanji?" Zeff sighs sadly.

"Fostered, by a lady called Robin. Her mother was murdered too, she helped people like me out." Zoro says quietly, looking down at his scruffy shoes. Sanji raises an eyebrow at that, Zoro lives alone and doesn't look like he has anyone looking out for him.

"Why the past tense?" The old man questions gently, perhaps sensing that he's on troubled ground.

"Hypothermia." Zoro answers quickly, his fists tightening in his lap.

"Well, do you have any friends that you live with? You're awful young to be on your own." The chef continues looking worried as they pull back into the parking area at the back of the Baratie.

"Arson. Look, this is a long list and I'd really rather not go through the whole thing." Zoro says jumping out of the door of the van before the thing's even parked.

"Oi kid, if... If you need anything, a place to stay or whatever then you can come here." Zeff calls quickly as he gets out of the van too.

Zoro pauses, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Sanji would never forgive me if my bad luck rubbed off on you. I'll let you know if I learn anything new." Zoro answers stiffly.

"Hey, it sounds like you've had a run of bad luck kid, but it's not your fault you know." Zeff frowns at the green haired guy.

"I might have believed you five bodies ago, but not now. I have to go." Zoro says quickly and moves to leave.

"Kid, at least take this. As a thank you, for helping Sanji." Zeff calls, holding out one of the polystyrene boxes to Zoro.

"Take it." Sanji urges Zoro. Awkwardly the green-haired teenager takes the box from the man Sanji considered a father and then shuffles away quickly.

 

He and Zoro walk back to Zoro’s place in silence. He doesn’t really know what to say. “sorry loads of people that you loved are dead?” that’s not exactly helpful. Maybe it’s just best to say nothing at all and let Zoro get on with it. 

Zoro opens the door to his flat and strides inside, kicking the door shut behind him. Sanji eases through it and ignores the fact that Zoro technically shut the door through him. Zoro shoots him a hard expectant look, like he’s daring Sanji to say something. Sanji isn’t going to though, Zoro’s past is none of his business, if Zoro wants to talk about it he can but Sanji isn’t gonna make him.

“Come on, let’s heat that up before it gets gross.” He says instead and breezes past Zoro into the kitchen.

Zoro’s tiny kitchen looks barely used at all but he talks Zoro through transferring his Styrofoam encased meal onto a plate that he can put in the oven to heat up. By the time Zoro’s tucking into an incredible lasagna all the awkwardness seems to be behind him. 

“So,” Sanji smiles slowly at Zoro, “our first lead.” 

“Our first lead.” Zoro agrees with a small tomato smeared smile.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is Creep by Radiohead

It’s not that Sanji doesn’t like Zoro, because he does – mostly anyway. But being around the same person constantly with no one else to talk to is enough to drive anyone crazy, as such Zoro is starting to try his patience and he’s never had much patience to begin with. Add to that the fact that Sanji is still grieving about being dead in the first place and frustrated with the lack of progress in their case and you have a ready made argument.

“If you were any good at this you’d be working for the police!” Sanji snarls angrily across the main room.

“I’m plenty good, besides, why would I want to be surrounded by dead people all day? I get enough of that ALREADY!” Zoro shouts back defensively, slamming his laptop shut from where he had been researching Creuset.

“If you’re so good then why am I still here?!” Sanji snaps feeling the frustration boiling inside of him.

“I don’t know! Why the hell are you here? You’re certainly not helping!” Zoro retorts and turns his back on Sanji angrily. 

Sanji presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and feels the disconcerting absence of pressure there, he’s not got any physical weight when he touches himself at all. Suddenly he doesn’t want to be here at all, he doesn’t want to be arguing with Zoro, he doesn’t want to be dead and he doesn’t want any of this. 

“And anyway-” Zoro starts, turning on his heel to face Sanji. His face goes blank though suddenly and he looks right through Sanji, the same way that everyone else does. He glances around the flat quickly, even looking behind him.

“Sanji?” Zoro calls with a worried note in his voice. He frowns slightly and nearly walks through Sanji on his way to the window without ever seeing him, Sanji has to dodge out of the way. Zoro opens the window and looks outside. 

Sanji looks down at himself and realises that he’s not there! He holds his hand out before him and sees absolutely nothing. Meanwhile Zoro leans back into the room and shuts the window quietly. 

“I didn’t mean it.” He says quietly to himself, sounding almost a little hurt. Zoro bites his lip and glances around the room once more in case Sanji might have suddenly re-materialised. Unsuccessful in his search he sighs and picks his bag up from the floor and shoves his house keys into his pocket. 

Sanji’s eyes widen, Zoro was going to work, Sanji knew that he was about due to leave. With a sneaky grin he realises that now that he’s invisible he can spy on Zoro and try to learn more about the man without Zoro catching him. 

Following Zoro to work at night is as boring as following Zoro anywhere is, though at least this time Zoro isn’t pretending that he can’t see him – he genuinely can’t. Still, other people still avoid Zoro, like they can sense that Zoro is somehow different to them. He wonders if it’s as a result of Zoro’s sixth sense. He’s not thought to ask Zoro if he can perceive other things that normal people can’t, like read minds and shit. Though, from Zoro’s social awkwardness Sanji would guess that Zoro isn’t a mind reader, and from Zoro’s past Sanji is certain that he can’t see the future. 

Zoro walks into a large convenience store, it’s ten at night and Sanji wonders if he’s stopping in to grab something before work. However, when Zoro makes his way past the shelves of stock without a second look and through an employees only entrance Sanji realises that Zoro actually works here.

He walks into the break room where three other tired looking teenagers are standing around in various states of readiness to leave. Zoro walks past them silently and all of them ignore him, as if Zoro was the invisible one instead of Sanji. 

Zoro fiddles with the padlock on the locker in front of him, tugs off his jacket and pulls out an employee shirt which he just puts on over his threadbare Iron Maiden t-shirt. 

Sanji looks from Zoro to his co-workers with a raised eyebrow, none of them have even acknowledged his presence or said hi. Instead they’re cheerfully chatting about movies between themselves. He looks back to Zoro who is staring into his locker with focused determination, as if he’s psyching himself up for something. The cook watches as Zoro plasters on a bright smile and turns to face his work colleagues. 

“Movies huh? I- I heard that new Sherlock Holmes film was good.” Zoro says with awkward enthusiasm. 

The three other teens still for a moment before continuing on their conversation awkwardly without him.

“So, let’s go then. Sunday night?” The small blonde girl says with forced brightness.

“The three of us.” The curly haired brunette at her side agrees rather pointedly.

“We should ask Jeff if he wants in too. Let’s go ask.” The guy with them says in that flat bored voice that so many guys who try to be ‘cool’ use.

The three of them leave the room together leaving Zoro entirely alone and ignored. Zoro smacks the back of his head against his locker frustratedly and turns back to slam the door of the thing and lock it again. Sanji hears himself muttering the word ‘stupid’ over and over again under his breath, somehow Sanji thinks that it’s self directed rather than at the three assholes that just acted as if he wasn’t even there. 

Sanji scowls and strides out through the wall back into the shop after the three jerks. 

“That guy just gives me the creeps, why does he have to work here?” The curly haired girl whines with a shiver.

“Ugh, tell me about it.” The guy agrees flatly. They pause at the till where a bored looking older guy in his twenties is reading a magazine with his feet on the counter. He glances up when he sees the others.

“Hey is uh… Zack here? Can we go?” The guy asks hopefully.

“Yeah, let’s hit the road.” The other guy replies with a grin. Magazine guy grins and chucks his magazine on the floor and vaults the counter to land with his buddies as they all walk out of the shop.

“It’s ZORO you jerks!” Sanji shouts after them, not that they hear him. God, they work with Zoro and they don’t even know his name? Besides Zoro isn’t creepy! He can be a little annoying and stubborn sure but he’s not creepy! He’s sweet and generous, not to mention dedicated and loyal. 

Slowly Zoro comes to the till and sits down in the chair there looking disappointed but not surprised.

“Bye then.” Zoro says quietly to himself. 

“Forget them, you’re better than that.” Sanji insists to Zoro, but Zoro can’t hear him, probably because Sanji doesn’t really want him to. He wants Zoro to do what he said, sure, but he doesn’t want the man to know that he followed him there. Zoro had forbidden him and Sanji can see why, the man has some pride and he clearly doesn’t want Sanji to know that he works at a shitty place like this with assholes like them.

“Oh come on Zoro, don’t just sit there. Get your phone out and call your friends before they go to sleep, tell them how much you hate the assholes you work with. Laugh at the losers! Don’t just… sit there.” Sanji pleads, but Zoro just stays in his chair looking small and alone. 

“He’s not going to call anyone you know, you can stand there all night and he won’t.” A female voice from behind him states. 

He yelps in an alarmingly feminine way and spins around to see a tall woman standing right behind where he had been. Her hair is long and dark, she has pale skin and very blue eyes. She watches him in an assessing way.

“He’s not got anyone to call. No one besides Smoker that is, and the two of them aren’t close.” She continues gently.

Sanji steps a little closer to the woman now that she seems unthreatening. Her breath mists out before and Sanji feels cold standing near her. 

“Who are you?” Sanji asks with a shiver.

“A friend of Zoro’s, family a little bit.” She smiles slightly with a hint of sadness, her eyes still on Zoro in his chair. 

Sanji’s eyes widen, didn’t Zoro say that he had a foster mother? A woman who took him in and then died? Who died of cold?

“You’re… Robin? The one that died of hypothermia?” Sanji guesses carefully, he doesn’t know if it’s impolite for other ghosts to talk about how they died.

“Technically I was murdered. A man called Akoji, he shoved me into the river in the middle of winter as punishment for something I had done when I was younger. I couldn’t swim, but I managed to grab onto a bridge support. Unfortunately I froze before I could get out of the river.” Robin says, her expression souring.

“I’m… sorry. Does Zoro know?” Sanji asks, Zoro had said that she died of hypothermia not that she’d been murdered.

Robin shakes her head sadly, dislodging ice crystals from her hair as she does so. 

“He can’t see me, so I could never tell him that I was pushed. There’s this rule about psychics not being able to see people that they knew. It’s probably some kind of inbuilt reflex to stop them all going mad. That’s what happens to all of them, they either go mad eventually or kill themselves, you never see people like Zoro when they’re old.” Robin answers sadly. 

Sanji looks over at Zoro again he’s putting away magazine guy’s inconsiderately thrown magazine. 

“What did you mean when you said that he’s not got anyone to call? Surely he’s got someone that he can talk to?” Sanji frowns in concern.

“No, not anymore. When I fostered Zoro he was alone, I wanted to make him feel normal again. The world is so awful to people that aren’t normal, and I know what that’s like. After a while he met Luffy and his brother Ace and he was really happy for a while. That was all I wanted. And when I died they helped put him back together again, he had friends.” Robin says sadly, the guilt evident in her tone.

“Why not anymore then? Can’t he see them?” Sanji asks with trepidation.

“No. Ace was involved in some gang stuff, they weren’t bad people but they did manage to piss off some bad people. Luffy got involved to try to save Ace when things looked like they were going bad. They got trapped in a burning building, they both died. It’s a little hard to survive having a melting rebar strut impaling your chest.” Robin answers flatly. 

“Shit.” Sanji breathes. How is it that everyone Zoro cares about dies horribly? No wonder the guy is so mentally scarred. 

“And if you had listened to Zeff when he told you not to show off at the competition you could have met Zoro when you were alive and changed everything for him. But you didn’t listen!” Robin says accusingly, her blue eyes narrowing at him dangerously. Robin’s eyes seem to sear into his soul, it’s almost like he can feel something being forced into his brain. Suddenly images flash behind Sanji’s eyes, memories.

“Just don’t be a show off okay? I know what you’re like, just try to go one day without being a cocky motherfucker alright?” Zeff sighs at Sanji’s sigh.

“You,” Sanji accuses, “have no sense of showmanship.” 

“Just behave.” Zeff orders. 

Then there’s the image of the hallway outside the party, the noise of the post-show celebrations echoing out to them.

“I TOLD you to keep yourself under control for ONCE!” Zeff shouts angrily.

“It’s my life, I can do what I want!” Sanji shouts back.

“You don’t go pissing off powerful people like that, you think that Creuset doesn’t have connections? He could end your cooking career!” Zeff snaps pointing a finger in his face. 

“Whatever.” Sanji says dismissively and stalks off to the window to have a smoke. He can’t be bothered to go all the way down to the ground floor to have a smoke, but the least he can do is lean out the window. He hears Zeff stomp off on his false leg as he slides the window open as he leans out and lights up.

Then there’s the disconcerting feeling of things rewinding inside his head, like his brain is an old VCR player. He’s back at the cooking competition but things are different.

He smiles gently at the room revelling in the warmth of his victory as Zeff smiles on proudly from the audience. He does as Zeff said and stays modest on the outside, he’s secretly smug inside and he knows that he wiped the floor with this so called ‘pro’ and the twitching in Creuset’s eye tells him that he knows it too. Sanji instead gets off on smiling congenially and letting the guy feel like a jerk. 

That night he’s outside the homeless shelter delivering meals, he can’t let his own personal victories get in the way of helping the hungry after all. He’s got one meal left and no one else around to feed, he considers eating it himself as he’s not had a chance to sit down and eat much all evening as people were too busy congratulating him at the party instead. 

As he rounds the corner he sees a scruffy looking guy standing around the back of the building staring into thin air and smiling to himself. The guy turns around and halts when he sees Sanji, golden earrings glinting in the moonlight as they jangle at his sudden stop.

“I wasn’t talking to myself.” He says suddenly.

“I… didn’t think you were. Uh… were you talking to yourself?” Sanji asks uncertainly, he hadn’t even heard the guy say a word. 

“No!” the guy snaps. Now that he’s closer Sanji can see that his hair is… green. How weird.

“Then who were you talking to?” Sanji asks, gesturing to the empty parking spaces around them.

“Uh… no one?” The guy ventures. Sanji snickers to himself, the guy seems nice but not too quick. 

“Here, I think you need this more than me.” Sanji says holding out the box of food to him. The green-head looks at it suspiciously and then raises a sarcastic eyebrow at Sanji. 

“You know I’m not homeless right?” He says flatly.

“You sure?” Sanji asks looking at the guy’s shitty clothes.

“Fuck you.” The guy scowls, Sanji finds himself laughing at this. 

“The offer still stands though, free food. I’d usually charge twenty bucks for this in my restaurant.” He grins at the man.

“Hmph, can’t be very good if you’re just giving it away for free then.” The guy comments haughtily.

“By that logic I guess you sleep with prostitutes huh?” Sanji shoots back snarkily. This makes the other guy burst into laughter that seems to surprise them both. He grins and shakes his head and goes to retrieve some plastic cutlery from the boot of his car. He leaves the lid open and sits down on the edge leaving room for the green-haired newcomer. 

“Share it with me?” He offers holding out a fork and popping open the lid of the box to reveal perfect linguini.

“Sure you’re not a serial killer or something? This could be poisoned, you could be trying to kill homeless people… and me.” The guy says suspiciously.

“God you’re weird.” Sanji snorts. The guy freezes a little at that, looking a little frightened and hurt.

“I kinda like it. There must be something wrong with me. Come on, it’s the best thing you’ll ever eat.” Sanji grins around his full fork.

“As long as it’s not the last thing I’ll ever eat.” The guy responds with a warm melting smile and sticks his fork into the box and eats with a happy smile.

“Sanji.” He says introducing himself. 

“Zoro.” The other guy smiles happily.

Sanji gasps as the world returns. He glances over at Zoro, expecting to see the happy smile that he’d just watched in what Robin had shown him but Zoro just looks lonely instead. 

“You should have listened. Instead you took away his last chance. What do you think he was doing up on that ledge in the first place? Looking for you?” Robin says coldly. Sanji opens his mouth mutely, that was what Zoro had been doing wasn’t it? He’d seen Sanji stuck up there and come up to free him hadn’t he? But then he recalls Zoro’s startled expression when he saw Sanji on the ledge. 

“No…” Sanji pleads, shaking his head. Zoro couldn’t have been up there to jump could he? But what else would he have been doing up there on that ledge if he wasn’t looking for Sanji? No one climbs out of a window that high up for the goddamned view. Surely Zoro wouldn’t though? Zoro… well, he couldn’t exactly say that Zoro had everything to live for. He was being haunted frequently, he had no friends, a shitty job and everyone he got close to died horribly. 

“You need to fix your mistake as much as you can.” Robin says sharply and turns away from him, vanishing in a flurry of ice crystals.

“How do I fix anything if I’m already dead?!” Sanji shouts after her but she’s already gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Sanji hovers thoughtfully in Zoro's shitty apartment thinking and smoking. He feels like he needs to do something but he has no idea what he is supposed to do. Goddamnit, if only he'd listened to Zeff he would still be alive and he could be Zoro's friend. He could be hanging out at Zoro's place alive and keeping Zoro sane, he'd be teasing Zoro and probably cooking for him, goodness knows that all the man had in his cupboards was cheap dried noodles and shitty takeaway.

A bright idea hits him then, he might not be able to cook for Zoro but he can certainly TEACH the seaweed brain how to cook! It wasn't as good as being alive for Zoro but this was the best that he could do with what he had.

Yeah, he could teach Zoro to cook, maybe teach him enough to get him a job at the Baratie with people who weren't assholes. Well, with Patty and Carne and people who weren't assholes. Zeff clearly liked Zoro enough to say yes if Zoro could pull his weight, Zeff had a bit of a soft spot for hopeless causes and strays. Zoro would be fine there, then they could go back to finding out who had murdered him. He didn't like the idea of finding out who had killed him now, if he 'went into the light' or whatever now he wasn't convinced that Zoro wouldn't be back up at that window again before too long and Sanji wouldn't allow that.

Sanji hears the sound of Zoro's key in the lock and stands up. He couldn't bear to wait out the rest of Zoro's shift, not when he was sitting there looking miserable like that and not after what Robin had said to him when she pointed the finger of blame squarely at him.

"God! Sanji! Have you been smoking in here?!" Zoro yells from the door and coughs loudly as he makes his way into the room. Guiltily Sanji flicks his cigarette into the air where it dematerialises, he grins innocently at Zoro.

"I never should have told you that you could do that." Zoro grumbles unhappily fanning the air.

"What is that anyway? It doesn't smell like normal cigarette smoke." Zoro frowns sniffing the air curiously.

"Ah, that carried over too did it? It's kinda stupid, I used to make my own tobacco blend, I mixed two store bought ones and added some ground cloves." Sanji answers with a shrug.

"Wait, so it's unique? No one else smokes that? How long have you been smoking that?" Zoro asks suddenly with wide eyes.

"Uh, a few years. And yeah, you can't buy it like that. I just told you that I make it." Sanji frowns not getting what Zoro is all worked up about. Zoro grins from ear to ear and pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials a number.

"What?" Sanji asks with a frown but Zoro waves him away.

"Ah! Smoker, I wanted to- uh... Yes, I know what time it is but I thought that... Sorry." Zoro apologises quickly and Sanji can hear Smoker yelling on the other end of the phone. Sanji isn't surprised that Smoker is yelling, it's quarter to five in the morning. Eventually the yelling dies down and Zoro seems to relax, even from where he is Sanji can tell that's Smoker's sighing and asking Zoro a question.

"Oh, yes. Did you by any chance pull any cigarette ash off of any of the suspects when you arrested them? Sanji's ash would be unique, he made his own, it'll be as good as a fingerprint so you- what? What do you mean you didn’t think to?!" Zoro stops suddenly, looking surprised. After a second and some tinny talking from Smoker on the other end of the line Zoro's face snarls in anger.

"Well this is probably why you never catch anyone!" Zoro shouts down the line and snaps his phone shut before violently flinging it across the room into the sofa.

Zoro drops to the ground like a sulky child and scrubs his hands through his hair in frustration. Sanji kneels down in front of him but Zoro is too busy glaring at the floor to look at him.

"It was a good idea." Sanji offers weakly.

"If the police weren't so damn incompetent maybe you wouldn't have to be here!" Zoro scowls angrily.

"You don't want me here?" Sanji grins at Zoro, that statement at least gets the man to crack a little bit of a smile.

"What I don't want is you wandering the earth forever when you should be moving on. If I can't do what you want and prove that you were murdered then you're stuck here." Zoro sighs, leaning back against the edge of his sofa.

Sanji smiles gently and stays silent on that point, he can't imagine that staying around with Zoro indefinitely would be too bad. And it would give him more time to help Zoro out and fix his life. And speaking of that idea...

"Hey, come on. You need to go get something to eat." Sanji orders standing up.

"I've got food in the cupboard." Zoro sighs, leaning his head back against the sofa arm.

"I’ve seen what you’ve got in your cupboard and that's not cooking, that's rehydrating; and thus not really food. So come on, move your malnourished ass and go get some food." Sanji says disdainfully.

"I'm good, thanks." Zoro shrugs, standing up and turning his back on Sanji. He scowls and scythes a kick through Zoro's back making him shudder and leap away.

"What the hell?!" Zoro demands spinning on his heel and glaring accusingly at Sanji.

"I might be intangible but don't think I won't kick your ass all night if you don't go." Sanji threatens flatly. He means it too, he grew up with Patty and Carne - he can be plenty annoying when he wants to be.

He and Zoro stare each other down for a few long moments before Zoro throws his arms up in the air and makes an exasperated noise as he stomps off out of the front door.

"And how do you plan to get anything cooked blondie? You can't cook anymore." Zoro points out in the deserted quiet of the street.

"You'd be surprised what you can teach monkeys to do." Sanji replies smugly.

"Oh you've got a smart mouth cook. Too bad the rest of you is dumb as a rock." Zoro retorts acerbically.

Sanji laughs at that then as the two of them walk along the road in the half light of the morning. Sanji feels real for a moment, he feels alive. He feels like if he reached out to touch Zoro his fingers would just touch the man and not slide icily though. He finds himself overwhelmed with a sense of possibility, he and Zoro don't exactly gel but goddamn if the two of them don't have awesome chemistry; he can throw a barb at the man and he's right there with sarcasm to smack him back with. On top of that Sanji would bet that you couldn't find a more loyal friend anywhere, the guy is already bending over backwards for him. God, with Zoro at his back they could do anything!

The sun suddenly shines over the tip of a building making Zoro squint at the sudden light. Sanji looks down to see the sunbeam shining effortlessly through his translucent form, he turns slightly and sees only Zoro's shadow at his side. He's not real, not really. He should be here for real with Zoro, but he's dead instead.

He feels that annoying melancholy settle onto his shoulders again, it’s the same as when he was dead on that ledge. It’s a sense of quiet despair and crushing loneliness. He shakes his head to try to dislodge the feeling and dashes after Zoro. 

The two of them bicker quietly as they shop, or rather Zoro bickers quietly and Sanji shouts at him, Sanji doesn’t have to worry if people think he’s weird now, it’s a little liberating. He forces Zoro to pick up plenty of good quality meat and vegetables as well as a full stock of herbs and spices. Upon discovering that Zoro doesn’t really have any cooking equipment he hassles the man into buying some basic equipment too.

 

“So,” Sanji announces brightly when they get back to Zoro’s place laden down with shopping. Well, Zoro is laden down, Sanji can’t carry anything so he’s fine. 

“What do you want to eat?” He asks hopefully. 

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” Zoro shrugs apathetically. He’s tired and Sanji already knows that he’s had a shitty day with the so called “people” that he works with. So he’s going to cut Zoro some slack here. 

“Come on, we can make loads of things with this. There must be some comfort food that you like but don’t know how to make.” Sanji persists. 

“I can’t think of anything.” Zoro shrugs looking away. Sanji’s eyes narrow, he’s not sure that Zoro’s telling the truth there, he decides to press a little more.

“There must be something, something you used to eat when you were feeling down or something that reminds you of something nice.” He persists. 

Zoro shuffles uncomfortably. He’s definitely hiding something. 

“Robin… When she was alive Robin used to make me omelettes when I was sick. But I don’t know how to…” Zoro mumbles awkwardly.

“I can teach you that! They’re super easy!” Sanji announces happily. He needs to show Zoro that cooking is something to be enjoyed, and he wants to bring back some happy memories for Zoro. Zoro puts up some protest but Sanji isn’t having any of it and hustles the green-haired man into the kitchen and starts listing things that he needs from the bags of shopping that they just bought.

In retrospect Sanji is glad that he got Zoro to buy a lot of eggs, somehow the man has never been taught how to crack an egg so he’s already smashed several by accident. Sanji has a lot of patience for someone trying to be good at something so he’s encouraging Zoro to keep going. Eventually, after a little concentrated fishing of eggshell shards, Zoro manages to successfully get two perfectly acceptable eggs into a bowl.

“I said whisk them.” Sanji repeats with a sigh a little later. 

“I am.” Zoro responds with a note of uncertainty in his voice. He’s got a fork stuck in the bowl with the eggs and is slowly rotating them. 

“No, you’re stirring them. Whisk them.” Sanji adds by way of explanation. Zoro glares at the bowl with a look of concentration and stirs a little faster.

“No, whisk them! With energy! Like this.” Sanji sighs and mimes holding a bowl in his arms and whisking energetically so that Zoro gets the point. This teaching thing is hard when he can’t show Zoro how to do anything himself.

Zoro holds the bowl in his arms instead of on the counter and suddenly violently flicks the fork about in an imitation of Sanji’s movement. Unsurprisingly egg is flung up in the air hitting Zoro in the face and splattering the fridge behind Zoro. Sanji can’t help but laugh and though Zoro shoots him a dark look the psychic laughs brightly too. Zoro wipes his face off with a foolish grin and tries to rescue the pristine side of his fridge. 

“Well, I feel stupid.” Zoro laughs in an embarrassed way. 

“Ah, don’t be. Every chef ends up with a little egg on their face from time to time.” Sanji snickers at his pun, Zoro throws a dishtowel through him in retribution.

“Haha, okay, so right idea but perhaps a little too much enthusiasm.” Sanji chuckles as Zoro starts breaking an egg into the bowl again. This time Zoro manages to whisk the eggs passably and without much direction from Sanji he manages to cut up a pepper without cutting himself, the guy is pretty talented with a blade. Sanji can’t help but wonder what he could be like with practice, Zeff would be impressed if Zoro took to all knife work like that from a total beginner. 

“Now, come on. Get that frying pan, the one with the metal handle, and fry those peppers.” Sanji instructs in his best businesslike voice. Zoro, surprisingly, does as he’s told. He’s clumsy in the kitchen but not unreachable with teaching, his knife skill shows that. Sanji doesn’t know if he’s counting his chickens by hoping to get Zoro into the Baratie and under Zeff’s protective wing but he hopes that Zoro can succeed. Even if Zeff doesn’t take him in at least Sanji can teach Zoro a skill that will be good for him. Zoro has every reason to be depressed but his poor diet can’t be helping, maybe if Sanji ensures that he eats properly then Zoro won’t be so apt to throw himself off of buildings in the future. Sanji would say that he could die happy then but he’s a little late for that, rest peacefully perhaps. 

“Okay, pour the eggs, carefully.” He says slowly, he doesn’t want Zoro throwing them over himself again by accident. Gingerly Zoro empties the bowl into the frying pan with the peppers and under Sanji’s instruction he pulls the mixture about enough to ensure that there aren’t any peppers on the bottom. 

“Did Robin make them runny or firmer?” Sanji asks carefully, aware that he may be on thin ice by talking about Robin with Zoro.

“They had lots of cheese on them.” Zoro ventures uncertainly. Sanji smiles at that, it sounds like comfort food alright. So, the omelette was probably on the firmer side. In that case then…

“Okay, open the oven and turn the grill on. And grab your cheesegrater.” He instructs Zoro. After a little fiddling with the dials Zoro manages to do so and then opens the cupboard at eye level on the wall to retrieve his grater. 

Zoro grates a fair amount of cheese onto his still cooking omelette and then bends down to see if the grill has properly turned on. It’s electric rather than gas so Zoro has to kneel down awkwardly around the open oven door and carefully put his hand near the grill to feel the heat. He straightens up suddenly and Sanji can see the accident happening before it does. Zoro’s had to step to the side to get around the open oven door and he’s carelessly left the door open on the wall cabinet, now that he’s standing up he’s going to manage to smack his head on it and rather painfully too it looks like. 

“Look out!” He yelps and out of reflex he slams his hand into the door to close it. Except… except his hand does connect with the cupboard door and shut it with a loud bang just in time for Zoro to stand up right where the door had been. 

The two of them stare wide eyed at the shut door and Sanji’s hand resting against it.

“You… you’re a poltergeist.” Zoro breathes shocked.

“A what now?” Sanji asks stunned as he pulls his hand back and stares at it. He can still see through it a little like he can with the rest of him but… but he was solid then, solid enough to move something anyway. 

“A poltergeist, a ghost that can move things! They’re… really powerful, and really rare.” Zoro breathes in amazement. 

Experimentally Sanji raises his hand to Zoro’s face and runs his fingers along the man’s cheekbone and across to the shell of Zoro’s ear until he brushes the three gold earrings that hang there. With a delighted laugh he sees that they move at his touch, he’s physical again! Or, well sort of. He touches Zoro’s neck, he can’t quite feel properly, he can vaguely feel Zoro’s warmth and just about the topography of his skin but he couldn’t tell you if he feels stubble or anything else, it seems pressure and heat are the only things that he can react to. But still, it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing! 

There’s a look on Zoro’s face that Sanji can’t quite parse and it disappears to be replaced by panic when Zoro realises that he’s letting his omelette singe in the pan. Sanji discards the idea but it mentally left with the nagging feeling that he’s missing something. 

After some more guided instruction the hopeless beginner that is Zoro finishes making his omelette and is happily eating it, Sanji allows himself to feel smug as he sits in front of Zoro on the table. 

“See, isn’t that better than some dehydrated noodles?” Sanji grins triumphantly. 

“Well,” Zoro says slowly, “I think all credit should go to the student, the teacher was useless.” He grins cheekily.

“You bastard!” Sanji snaps and flings a salt packet from the table at him, he’s going to like being able to touch things. Zoro for his part snickers into his omelette and Sanji relaxes, being dead isn’t all bad it seems.


	6. Safe in the dark - Ludo

Sanji was pretty pleased with himself, oh sure Zeff sometimes told him that he got smug too soon but right now Sanji was pretty convinced that he was doing well. He’d taught Zoro to make three different dishes now and the man seemed to enjoy the time when Sanji taught him, Sanji didn’t know if that was from pleasure at cooking or if it was because they both weirdly enjoyed the insulting back and forth insults and childishness that Sanji’s teaching time involved. Yeah, his plan to ah… what was the appropriate term… ah, yes. His plan to rehabilitate Zoro before releasing him into the wild again was going pretty well.

“You know, you’ve not been badgering me about your case lately.” Zoro remarks slowly, sitting outside a café with his headphones in. They’re the sort that has a microphone on the wire so Zoro looks like he could be talking to someone hands-free over the phone. He’s not of course, he’s talking to Sanji who is sitting in the chair to his side invisible to all but Zoro.

“Well, I know you’re doing your best. It’s not like pestering is going to help is it?” Sanji lies quickly. Zoro slides a suspicious glance at him but quickly goes back to his drink. Sanji relaxes a little, he doesn’t want Zoro knowing why he wants to stick around, no doubt the man would consider Sanji’s previous following of him to his workplace a violation of his privacy. On top of that the man definitely didn’t want anyone’s pity, certainly not Sanji’s. Still, Zoro needed him, so the longer he could put off Zoro’s detective work the better. 

He’s about to open his mouth to say something snarky to Zoro but when he looks over at the man he’s looking around wildly with panic written plainly on his face.

“What?” Sanji asks feeling worried. 

“Get out of here, get away from me. Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me!” Zoro hisses urgently, looking him in the eyes now for the first time in public. 

“What the hell? I’m not going to-” Sanji frowns angrily thinking that Zoro’s being REALLY goddamn rude but the man cuts him off before he can go any further.

“Do it, please.” Zoro begs. Actually begs, the pleading tone can’t be construed as anything else. In addition to this Sanji feels a horrible sensation wash over him, sticky and cold playing on his nerves. Zoro snaps back into his chair and stares dead ahead as if he can’t even see Sanji at all. 

Worried but willing to obey a request given in that tone of voice Sanji flies backwards weightlessly and slips around the nearby alley corner. The disgusting feeling gets stronger. He glances around for the source of it, it’s not coming from Zoro, in fact it seems to have gotten stronger since he moved away from him. His eyes scan the street and land on a girl walking down the road, it kind of hurts his eyes to look at her, it’s as if she’s out of focus or as if Sanji’s trying to watch a 3D film without the glasses on. Behind her though is… well, Sanji doesn’t know what they are. 

There’s about four of them and even from where Sanji is standing he can tell that they reek, they smell like rotten meat, they smell far worse than the dumpsters full of discarded unsuitable meat outside some of the places that Sanji used to buy meat from. They look like they should have been people once, they look to be rotting where they walk, they’d be a passable impression of zombies if they weren’t clearly intangible and sepia coloured like a faded hideous photograph. They don’t seem to have legs anymore, they’re just floating torsos and brown mist with rotted looking bodies. Sanji wants to gag just from looking at them, but without a body he doesn’t have that reflex any more. He’s glad for once that he’s dead, otherwise he’d probably be seeing his lunch again. Behind them is a terrified looking guy who looks a little younger than Sanji himself, he’s trying to stay away from the… things but he’s being dragged along with them behind this girl clearly against his will. 

Sanji glances over at Zoro, the man is staring ahead fixedly at nothing, as if he can’t see the things. When Sanji looks back at the… monstrosities though they’ve paused behind the girl and are staring at Zoro with empty eye sockets, they’ve seen him. The girl herself looks ill and has stopped to paw around in her handbag not too far away from Zoro, leaving the things enough of whatever range they have from he to get to Zoro.

With a groan that’s right out of a horror movie the things ooze over to Zoro, Sanji can see from his hiding point that all the blood has drained out of Zoro’s face as they come closer. The things groan and writhe, pawing with rotting fingers at Zoro’s flesh and sliding sickly through him. A muscle dances tensely in Zoro’s jaw as the man stares resolutely ahead as if oblivious to the horrors before him. Sanji can see that the man is even holding his breath, clearly trying not to breathe in their vile stench.

Sanji’s protective instincts well up, he wants to fly over there right now and kick those monsters away from his Zoro. He hesitates though, Zoro sent him away for a reason and he’s ignoring these things for a reason, might he make things worse if he intervenes? Doing so would surely show that Zoro can see things, after all why else would Sanji defend him? His decision is taken from him though as the girl finds what she’s seeking in her bag, pills by Sanji’s guess as she chases whatever she found and put in her mouth with a large gulp of water from a bottle. With that she walks slowly off. The horrifying things look from her to Zoro and back to her again and with a rattling groan follow after the girl. Behind them dithering is the younger looking guy that was being dragged with them. 

Zoro closes his eyes and heaves a ragged breath in and out. He looks up again his eyes focus, unfortunately on the man that was with the zombie-like things. Sanji can tell from where he is that they make eye contact. From out of no where there’s a snapping sound, like a rubber band giving way and Sanji spies a white shimmering cord fly free from the girl with one end still attached to the guy. Instead of disappearing though the white rope rears up like a snake and in a fast motion strikes forward and embeds itself in Zoro’s chest. Zoro recoils slightly and gasps, Sanji can see the white cord tightening itself through Zoro’s chest – it’s hurting him! His temper is stretched too far and Sanji leaps forward towards Zoro intent on pulling Zoro free from whatever the rope-thing embedded in his chest is. 

Upon closer inspection the rope looks a little yellowed, it’s off white like old rope but it’s got no real texture to it. Zoro shudders in his chair, drawing looks from nearby patrons and the end of the rope that’s sprouting from Zoro’s chest starts to turn a snowy white. The colour starts spreading up the rope towards the other guy who looks panicked and confused about the whole thing. Sanji realises with a shudder of his own that this rope and that guy are leeching some kind of energy off of Zoro! The whiter the rope gets the fainter Zoro starts to look. It’s as if this guy has just stuck a straw into Zoro’s heart and is sucking his blood out like some kind of goddamned vampire! Desperately Sanji tries to yank the thing free from his friend before it’s too late, but his hands just go right through it, even touching Zoro’s chest with his new found tangibility doesn’t allow him to remove the rope. 

“What are you doing to him?!” Sanji snarls, turning to the guy who’s clearly responsible for this. 

“I- I don’t… what’s happening?!” the guy responds in a terrified voice. 

Then the whiteness that’s spreading up the intangible cord reaches the new guy. He actually lifts off of the floor with the power of it. He glows momentarily and steadily all of the colour starts to flow back into him, like an old faded photograph digitally re-enhanced again. 

“Stop it!” Sanji yells helplessly, this guy is going to kill Zoro at this rate. 

However before either of them can say anything else the cord vanishes into nothingness and the other guy is dropped to the ground in a startled heap, he looks almost alive again. Zoro though slumps sideways and catches himself on the edge of the outdoor café table with his elbow, he turns and shakily supports himself with both elbows, burying his fingers in his hair. Feeling panic clawing at his rationality Sanji darts back to Zoro’s side, the man is white as a sheet and shaking. 

“Zoro! Are you okay?” Sanji asks desperately, his hand touching Zoro gingerly on the shoulder.

“I’m… I’m fine.” Zoro breathes quietly. With trembling fingers he reaches out to his drink, when his hand lands on it the cup rattles against its saucer and Zoro clumsily raises the half finished hot chocolate to his lips and downs the rest of it in two shaky gulps. Sanji examines Zoro carefully. The man’s eyes look unfocused and he’s still trembling, a cold sweat has broken out on his skin as well giving him the clammy look of someone who’s about to throw up. 

“You’re not fine, get up. I’m taking you home.” Sanji orders in his best no-nonsense voice. Without a word Zoro shakily climbs out of his chair and stumbles off into the street back towards his home, the complete lack of argument, snark or bickering worries Sanji deeply. Zoro’s usually so contrary that, unless it’s to do with cooking or solving his murder, anything Sanji asks him to do the man will do the opposite just to piss him off. Zoro stumbles off down the road with Sanji hot at his heels. He scowls over his shoulder at the other guy that’s responsible for this whole mess.

“Don’t even think of following us you bastard!” Sanji yells at the curly haired interloper who is already following them.

“He… he can’t help it, he’s tethered now.” Zoro says breathlessly and staggers to the side. Sanji catches him in time with a tangible enough shove with his shoulder to set Zoro’s balance straight. Still, Sanji glares daggers at the newcomer as Zoro shambles home. The whimpering new guy follows the pair of them home. Sanji watches Zoro with concern though, the man is still pale as anything although thankfully he doesn’t look like he’s going to hurl anymore, he does however look like he’s about to pass out. 

When they get to Zoro’s front door his hands are shaking too much to use his keys properly so Sanji slides through the wooden door and bats at the lock until it clicks open allowing Zoro to just turn the handle and stumble in. He shuts the door after him and leans on it gasping for breath as if he’s just run a marathon. The new guy meekly slides through the door around Zoro, careful not to touch him lest he incur Sanji’s wrath – a smart move. 

“Look, we’re in private now. What the hell was that? What did he do to you and what were those awful things following that girl?” Sanji asks urgently.

“I… that was… I need to get to the sofa.” Zoro manages and slides along the wall to support himself as he practically drags himself to the main room of his little place. Zoro falls bonelessly face down on the sofa and lays there for a few moments before turning his head to the side so that he can see Sanji and the newcomer. Seeming to have a little more of his breath now he starts to talk. 

“Did you see the girl that he was with? Did she seem kind of wrong to you? Like… glowing or out of focus?” Zoro asks tiredly.

“I- yeah. It was like I couldn’t see her right.” Sanji answers, humouring Zoro for now in the hope that this line of questioning will lead to answers that he wants. 

“She’s like me, or… sort of. There are other people like me, that can perceive you. It’s rare to be like me and to be able to both see and hear you, some people can just see you but not hear you, some are the other way around and some just dream of you. From what I know about her I think she can just hear you.” Zoro explains slowly and ever so slightly out of breath. 

“The reason that you couldn’t focus on her was because she’s on drugs, the kind that stop her being able to hear you. Anti-psychotics usually. It pretty much completely blocks out ghosts.” Zoro continues.

Sanji’s eyebrows raise at this. He supposes though that if you could hear voices like that in your head all the time you might reasonably think that you were nuts and see a professional about it, who would of course prescribe you something like that. 

“Why… why aren’t you on something like that? Surely it can’t be fun seeing dead people all the time, or running around solving mysteries like mine.” Sanji asks, feeling guilty for intruding on Zoro’s life – even if he is determined to make it better by doing so. 

“Because those things are what happen when you do that. Those were people once, ghosts. Ghosts who needed help and didn’t get it because she was ignoring them. That’s what they become, it must be hell for them, they’re not even human anymore. I’ve tried to help them before but they can’t even tell you what it is they need anymore, last time I tried to help one it nearly killed me. I could never do that, I couldn’t turn someone into that!” Zoro declares hotly, pushing himself up on his elbows to shoot Sanji a fierce look. 

Sanji looks over to the new guy, the one that hurt Zoro. He’s got a stupidly long nose, frizzy out of control hair and a shit-scared expression on his face. However, he looks perfectly fine despite being around those… things… ex-people or whatever it is they are now. Ghouls perhaps. 

“Well, what about him?” Sanji frowns looking at the other guy.

“He’s not been dead long enough to be one of them, still, he wasn’t far off starting to change. That’s why I’m so… drained. It took up a load of psychic energy just to bring him back to the level he’s at now, it just… hit me a little harder than I was expecting.” Zoro groans sitting up and rubbing his head weakly. 

“So he did do this to you!” Sanji snaps accusatorially at the other guy.

“I didn’t do anything! It just happened, I heard this snap and then… I don’t know!” The guy squeaks fearfully. 

“It’s not his fault, I took him from her. Otherwise he’d have ended up like them. I just didn’t realise how far gone he was.” The green head says defending the little energy-leeching bastard. 

“Regardless of whether he meant to or not he hurt you by taking that much energy from you, who knows what that’s doing to your health!” Sanji insists, he wonders if half the reason that Zoro is so skinny is because of bastards like this guy stealing the very life force from him.

“Stop fussing, it’s just a problem when it’s all in one go. It’s like money, imagine that you’re the kind of person that buys food every day, you never have to pay out much in one go it’s just a little bit. But this guy- uh… sorry, what was your name?” Zoro frowns looking at the new guy.

“Uh… Usopp.” The new guy squeaks timidly.

“Yeah, so Usopp here instead doesn’t do that and instead buys everything he needs in one go. I mean, how long have you been dead Usopp? A month? A month and a half?” Zoro asks gesturing to the guy.

“Two. Two months, roughly anyway.” Usopp replies in a worried little voice. 

“Geez. So yeah, that’s a bit more of a shock to the system. Or the wallet.” The idiotic psychic finishes lamely with his stupid metaphor. 

Sanji frowns and sits down beside him. Even if this Usopp guy was in trouble Zoro shouldn’t have done something like this, it’s clearly not good for him. 

“It’s not right though, having your energy taken from you like that.” Sanji pouts unhappily.

“Oh please, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt like this when it’s a bit at a time, not with just two of you anyway. That girl on the other hand, if she’s dragging those things around her they’re gonna take any chance they can get if she stops her medication. They’re already draining her through it, though it’s mostly protecting her at the moment, if she comes off that medication they’ll probably eat her alive. I doubt if she’ll live to see thirty.” Zoro says sadly. Sanji is suddenly reminded of what Robin said about people like Zoro never living to be old. 

But still… what Zoro is saying, he can’t mean that he’s constantly losing his energy can he? It’s not like his soul has a leak in it or anything. Unless he means…

“Wait… tell me that I’m not slowly doing this to you too.” He asks horrified at the idea.

“Of course you are, how did you think that you’re still conscious? When you’re alive your spirit is supplied by the energy from your body which you get from food. In case you’ve not noticed, you don’t eat any more. Haven’t you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics? You don’t get something for nothing.” Zoro says looking at him exasperatedly. 

“I’m fairly sure that that’s not what they say.” Sanji retorts on autopilot because, god, he’s doing this to Zoro too? He’s noticed that Zoro is a pretty low energy guy, sleeping a lot and napping when he has the chance. But Sanji had put that down to the late working hours, the poor diet and the likely case of depression the guy had. He hadn’t considered that he might be having an affect on the guy as well. Another horrible thought slowly occurs to him as well.

“Since… since we’re getting your energy then, we’re not going to turn into those things now are we? You said that you brought Usopp back to this level but you didn’t say that you put him back to normal.” Sanji asks wide eyed. Zoro winces at that and Sanji knows him well enough by now to recognise Zoro’s reaction to being busted about something he didn’t want you to know.

“Well, dead people aren’t supposed to be in this world, it makes them decay. The process takes a lot longer when you’re with someone like me because I help you, I pay attention to you and you get my energy. It’d take a long time with all of that to decay that far, I mean like easily more than six months. And it’s not gonna take that long to help you two out. Promise.” Zoro says sleepily, his eyes looking heavy.

“I’m… gonna crash now. Usopp stay here I’ll try and help you later I’m just gonna…” Zoro trails off with a yawn and slides sideways through Sanji until he’s lying on the sofa again, Sanji slides out of the way and is shocked to see the man is already snoring. 

He looks over at Usopp who is still regarding him with a faint hint of terror. Sanji sighs to himself, he supposes that Zoro is going to have to help this guy out as well now. And well, there goes Sanji’s plan to stick around with Zoro indefinitely up in smoke. He really doesn’t want to become one of those… things. 

Still, he considers as he looks over the sleeping idiot, the guy is doing his level best to help him. Maybe he should just be a little more helpful back now, especially if they’re on a time limit.


	7. Shooting the Moon - Ok Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna listen to the song for this chapter the link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tSvR_xgUuw

Sanji isn’t often lost for words, he’s a pretty confident guy and pretty mouthy too so usually he’s not the quiet type. But with Zoro passed out on the sofa leaving him alone in the room with another dead guy who he just moments ago accused of deliberately draining Zoro of life, he feels a little… awkward. It seems like the guy wasn’t doing that, or at least not much more than Sanji has been doing cumulatively.

The two of them are just standing there, trying not to look directly at each other and neither knowing what exactly they’re supposed to be doing right now. The little nagging voice in the back of his mind is prompting him that he should probably apologise, but he’s frequently ignored that voice in favour of male pride so he stands in silence.

“So… how did you kick it?” Usopp eventually asks with a loud nervous laugh.

Sanji stares at him and after a heavy silence for a few seconds laughs at the absurdity of the whole situation.

“Murder, I was pushed out of a building and bit pavement. You?” Sanji says giving the other guy a curious look.

“Murder too. Did… did it take long for you? To die I mean?” Usopp asks worriedly looking at him.

“Didn’t feel a thing. I remember being terrified about falling but nothing else, Zoro looked over my autopsy report and said it looked like it was instant.” Sanji shrugs, his memory of that time is patchy as is but he’s glad that he can’t remember what it felt like to have your bones shatter and your brain splatter across the pavement.

“It- it felt like it took forever for me. I don’t know how long it actually was but…” Usopp shudders and for a few moments wounds flicker into visibility about his body, deep stabs and gashes. The guy looks like he lost a fight with a threshing machine or something! Usopp shakes his head and suddenly appears normal again, he doesn’t seem to have noticed the change in his appearance.

He remembers quizzing Zoro a few days ago about something he’d first said about suicide cases. Zoro had said that suicide cases tended to look “messed up”, he’d explained that it was something to do with mentally internalising your injuries. People who killed themselves were in some way prepared for what would happen to them, or at least aware enough of it for it to become stored in their memory and as such it tended to affect their appearance. On top of that people who killed themselves and continued existing as ghosts tended to feel guilty and they sort of subconsciously punished themselves by looking like that.

Sanji guesses though that the same logic holds true for those that look a long time to die, if you spend ages dying of wounds like Usopp’s then he supposes that it’s the kind of thing that sticks in your memory for a while. It went a way to explaining why it felt so cold to be near Robin if she died of hypothermia.

“That sucks.” Sanji offers. He’s not going to say that he’s sorry because it wasn’t like he did it. Usopp nods and looks carefully at Zoro. Sanji follows his line of sight. Zoro’s completely out of it, sprawled across his cheap looking furniture with his arms and legs all tangled up. He’s nineteen but because he’s so goddamn malnourished his body looks younger, his face looks like he could convincingly be older though. Or it does when he’s awake anyway, when he’s awake he perpetually has this scowl on that makes him look older and gruff. But asleep his face is smooth and calm, he looks a little angelic actually. Usopp’s probably thinking that this skinny young guy who looks like he could pass for a hobo doesn’t look like much, but he doesn’t know jack about Zoro.

“He’ll do it you know, help you I mean. He’ll get you to where you need to be.” Sanji asserts confidently.

“Oh yeah, then why’re you still here?” Usopp asks quirking an eyebrow at Sanji. Sanji shoot Usopp a sharp look that makes the guy flinch back in fear, chicken.

“I was being… uncooperative. I didn’t really want to go. I like-” Sanji pauses, he wants to say that he likes Zoro but for some reason he doesn’t want to admit that to Usopp, it feels private somehow. Weird.

“I like it here. I shouldn’t have died, I don’t want to go. I thought I could just stay here forever.” He says instead.

“But you don’t want to turn into one of those horrors!” Usopp gasps in terror.

“I didn’t know that could happen!” Sanji snaps feeling creeped out by the idea. He can’t imagine how awful it must feel being one of those creatures, it felt terrible enough just being near them!

“I suppose I don’t have much choice but to go.” He murmurs sadly. Maybe he can still try to get Zoro under Zeff’s wing before he leaves, he’d hate to have to go and leave him alone. Or maybe he could go and come back again? Was that what Robin did? She seemed to have more knowledge of what could have been than just a ghost, maybe when you’re on the other side you get that kind of knowledge and can come back. But would Zoro be able to see him then? Questions, questions. He didn’t have any answers though.

Zoro slept for an astonishing amount of time, Sanji was glad that he at least had today and tomorrow off, it was seven am the next morning by the time he woke up! He and Usopp had kept themselves amused by swapping stupid stories and jokes or playing I-spy out of the window (which eventually stopped due to the rampant amount of cheating on both sides) and when Sanji started to feel a little claustrophobic he floated up onto the roof and smoked for a few hours.

When Zoro eventually did awake it was with a stream of muffled curses, the guy looked like hangovers personified and Sanji firmly wouldn’t let him do anything until he’d drank two pints of water, had breakfast and showered. This irritated Zoro to no end and amused Usopp endlessly.

“How long have you two known each other?” Usopp asks with a giggle.

“Since he found me when I was dead.” Sanji shrugs. He’s kind of lost track of the days, it’s a little hard to keep time when you don’t have sleeping to mark each day out by. It’s been… a week maybe?

“Oh, you two seem like you’ve known each other forever.” Usopp comments, sounding surprised. Usopp shrugs and seems to forget about it but something about his sentence sticks in Sanji’s mind. He feels a little like that too, he’s barely known Zoro any length of time but he does feel like he’s known him for a long time, it should have been longer but… hm. The feeling skitters away from him like roaches away from the light. He shrugs to himself and lets it go.

Eventually the squeaky clean, fed and watered Zoro emerges looking like a human being for a change. He sits on the sofa and shoots Sanji a sarcastic look as if to say ‘can I do my job now?’, Sanji flips him off for good measure.

“Tell me about yourself, why are you here?” Zoro asks, leaning back on the sofa, the familiar notepad on his knee as he watches Usopp expectantly.

Usopp launches into a pretty fucking tragic life story. His mother is dead and his father is absent, possibly dead who knows. He’s in love with this pretty rich girl who, surprisingly, seems to like him too. Not that he’s allowed to see her because her staff all think he’s riff-raff who should be leaving the young lady alone. The young lady in question is very sick, she’s always had frail health and the death of her parents not too long ago sent her health into a tailspin. Usopp came along to cheer her up and help her, it seemed to be working.

Sanji finds it a little hard to believe that anyone would kill this guy until Usopp’s face darkens and he begins to talk about the girl’s butler. They’ve never liked each other and recently Usopp overheard the butler planning with some criminals, apparently part of a gang that he used to run, to kill this lovely young lady for her money after tricking her into signing over her fortune to him in her will. Usopp had tried to warn her but she’d rejected his, admittedly rather outlandish sounding, warning. In an effort to find proof to convince her Usopp wound up alerting the butler to his knowledge of the plan and was murdered to ensure that he could never tell anyone the truth. Stabbed to death as it happens, this explains the injuries.

Zoro leans back thoughtfully after this tragic tale and scratches his jaw as he thinks.

“It sounds to me like you can’t leave until either she believes you or until you’re sure she’s safe.” Zoro sighs.

“I don’t want her to think I was lying, not about something like that! And I can’t just leave her in danger like that!” Usopp agrees desperately, his hands clenched together in what looks almost like prayer.

“So I’ve got to go talk to her. Great.” Zoro groans unhappily. Sanji raises an eyebrow at that, what could be so bad about talking to a pretty lady? From the way Usopp describes her it sounds like the woman’s a genius and practically a movie star in looks, what could be so bad about that?

“Oi, asshat. It’s always a privilege to talk to a pretty lady!” Sanji chides the dumb ape.

“Yeah, she’s really nice Zoro. She’ll listen to you.” Usopp smiles reassuringly.

“She might be nice and she might be pretty, but you try leading a conversation with “hey I’m here to pass on a message from your dead loved one!” and see how far that gets you. People can be surprisingly un-nice and ugly when you’re someone like me.” Zoro grumbles.

A part of Sanji’s soul aches. He wonders if Zoro’s friends knew about this part of Zoro, the part that sees dead people, or if Robin knew. He wonders if even with the people Zoro’s close to know and accept all of who he is. If not the man must feel unbearably lonely.

“Do you have anything that I can tell her? Anything that’ll prove that you’re really here and I’m not a nutcase?” Zoro asks hopefully.

“Aside from knowing what I’ve already told you… I suppose… I suppose that you could tell her to go to my house and look in the box under my bed. I was… I bought her something. I think that she’d know it was from me. I never told anyone so… would that do?” Usopp says sadly.

“Let’s go find out.” Zoro states and with that strides out of the building. Sanji and Usopp glance at each other and follow him quickly out of the building.

It takes a little directing on Usopp’s part, Zoro has no sense of direction even when he’s told to go left he still seems to end up going the wrong way, but they get there. There happens to be the most fancy pants mansion that Sanji’s ever clapped eyes on.

“Well how the hell am I going to get in there?” Zoro mutters to himself as he stands on the small wall with his hands wrapped around the railings, straining on his tiptoes in his shitty converses to see over the neatly manicured hedge. Sanji’s wondering the same thing but Usopp is beckoning them down further along the fence. Zoro shrugs at him and follows.

It turns out that Usopp is leading them to a point in the hedge where the bars are attached to a hinge, no doubt the handiwork of Usopp himself. Zoro sneaks through and is led expertly by Usopp who is clearly a master of sneaking through the neat patrolled gardens of this lady’s stately home. Soon they arrive at the bottom of an old tree.

“I used to tell her stories and jokes from that branch up there all the time, it made her happy. Never thought I’d be leading a medium here to talk to her now that I’m dead.” Usopp murmurs sadly. Zoro shuffles awkwardly, clearly he doesn’t like this any more than Usopp. Instead of talking to the man, Zoro leaps ungracefully and with a fair amount of grunting and cursing under his breath manages to haul himself up onto the branch. He finds an assortment of pebbles stored in a knothole of the tree.

Zoro snags one and flings it lightly at the window, it bounces off with a rattle. Sanji hears footsteps dashing towards the window and quickly the panes are flung open by a girl with delight written all over her fine features, her face falls rapidly when she sees Zoro. Sanji guesses that the woman must have for a moment thought he was Usopp and he was still somehow alive, he wonders if Zeff has that feeling sometimes, it’s hard to be the one left alive.

“Who are you?” She asks warily eyeing Zoro.

“I’ve got a message for you, I’m sorry if I startled you I just-” Zoro says guiltily dropping the stones. She looks at Zoro assessingly, not meanly but, well, Zoro looks a bit shabby even when he’s scrubbed up.

“You don’t look like a messenger.” She says plainly in her elegant voice. Her pretty blonde hair slides over her shoulders, Usopp wasn’t lying about how pretty this girl is.

“Hah, I don’t exactly get paid for this so I don’t get a stupid uniform.” Zoro laughs awkwardly. He seems to realise that this isn’t going well and reddens with embarrassment.

“I- um. The message, right. I have a message for you from Usopp.” Zoro tries again. This time the woman’s face does sour from an obvious stab of pain and anger.

“Usopp is dead.” She says harshly, her grief pouring through her words clearly.

“I, yes, he is. But, I… I still have a message from him, to you I mean.” The green head fumbles, starting to go red himself. An uncomfortable silence descends suddenly, Zoro was obviously trying to work out how best to broach the topic but now he’s got to work out how to break the silence too, it doesn’t help that the Kaya woman is looking more angry and upset by the second. Sanji winces to himself, Zoro seems able to talk to him just fine, why is he so awkward and uncomfortable with the living?

“You- you’re saying you’ve got a message from Usopp, Usopp who’s dead?” She asks shakily, she’s staring at Zoro with wide distrustful eyes and Sanji can see this train wreck coming before it happens.

“Don’t say-” He starts desperately, knowing that only Zoro can hear him.

“Yes!” Zoro says happily.

“Oh shit.” Sanji groans. Just because Zoro can hear him doesn’t mean that he’s listening.

“You’re… you’re sick! My Usopp is dead and you’re, what, trying to pass on some message for him?” She demands, her anger visibly building as her knuckles whiten as she grips the window ledge tightly.

"Yes! About Kurohadol, his name is actually Kuro, what Usopp told you is all true! He said that he didn't want you believing that the last thing he said to you was a lie, you're in danger!" Zoro insists earnestly, his wide eyes shining with honesty that apparently only Sanji can see.

"Usopp is dead! He didn't tell you anything! If Usopp was here now he'd attack you for saying such a terrible thing! What he said about Kurohadol was a stupid joke!" She yells at Zoro furiously.

"It's not a joke!" Zoro replies desperately, clearly becoming anxious at how loud Kaya's being.

"It is, it's a sick joke! My Usopp is dead and you thought that you would come here claiming that you have a message from him? You thought I'd pay you because I'm rich and grieving?!" Kaya accuses angrily with tears welling in her eyes.

"Kaya, he's not lying, it's true!" Usopp insists, but Kaya can't hear him.

"I don't want your money! Kuro does, he's trying to get you to write him into you will, then he'll kill you like he did Usopp!" Zoro shouts hopelessly.

"Get out! Get out!" Kaya screams and rips her shoe off of her foot and hurls it at him. Zoro dodges but nearly falls out of the tree completely in doing so, he's hanging from the branch with both arms trying not to fall.

"I can prove it! Usopp never told anyone when he was alive but he bought something for you, it's in a box under his bed, I don't know what it is, just go look!" Zoro pleads as he scrabbles for grip. Sanji tries to reach for Zoro to pull him up right as Kaya grabs the old fashioned phone off of her desk and hurls it at Zoro. It sails through the air and through Sanji effortlessly and smacks Zoro right on the temple.

Sanji watches in horror as Zoro goes limp and falls from the tree and crashes to the ground, blood is streaming from his temple alarmingly. Shit, people died from things like that didn't they?

"Zoro! Don't you dare be dead! Wake up!" Sanji yells falling weightlessly to the floor and swinging his substance-less hand through Zoro's face, he doesn't want to actually touch him for fear of making Zoro's head injury worse.

Mercifully Zoro’s eyes blink groggily open and slowly they focus on Sanji. He’s grinning so wide he’s surprise his head doesn’t crack in two. Zoro’s alive.

“You had me worried for a second dumbass.” He laughs, touching the side of Zoro’s face lightly. Zoro leans into his touch for a moment before trying to push himself up on his elbow.

Sanji glances up, he can hear the woman calling for her guards and from the seriously scared look on Usopp’s face, this isn’t a good thing.

“They have guns and stuff so we really need to get him out of here!” Usopp squeaks and he drops down from the tree.

Between the two of them they manage to cajole Zoro into getting up and stumbling in the right direction towards the hole in the fence for Zoro to escape through. Sanji can see the guards rounding the corner and at the speed Zoro’s stumbling away and the speed that they’re running they’re definitely going to catch him.

Sanji pauses, there are some medium sized rocks lining the edge of the gravel pathway, if he could just kick one at them they’d trip and Zoro would have time to get away. Can he move something that big? He’s been able to support Zoro’s weight leaning on him lately but that’s Zoro so maybe he’s more affected by stuff like that. The heaviest thing he’s been able to move so far that isn’t Zoro was that cupboard door.

The guards were gaining. Goddamnit he didn’t have time for self doubt here!

He scowls down at the stone. He needs to remember what it felt like to be solid, what it felt like kicking things in his kickboxing lessons, he needs to keep in mind that if he doesn’t do this Zoro could really get hurt. Or worse. He aims, pulls his leg back and kicks. The rock skitters across the ground right into the path of the two guards tripping one right up and making him drag the other down with him in his reflex to catch himself.

Sanji grins triumphantly and dashes off after Zoro. He phases through the hedge and fence to find Zoro shambling down the street, pressing a hand to his temple. He looks like an honest to god Zombie with all that blood trickling down from his head wound on to his face and with the dirt smeared on his clothes from his escape.

“Let’s get you home, moron.” Sanji smiles and follows Zoro down the road. He stops at the corner to light a cigarette and rolls his eyes, a few seconds later Zoro passes him by again, this time heading the right way.

 

When they get back Zoro throws his coat onto the floor, kicks the front door shut and locks himself in the bathroom. Sanji gives him a few minutes of privacy and smirks to himself that Zoro felt the need to lock the door when only Sanji has the capacity to even move the door handle and both of them can phase through the wall effortlessly anyway. He glances over at Usopp who’s floating morosely by the window, he doesn’t seem like he’s going to be a problem, it’s probably okay to leave him alone for a moment.

“Can I come in?” He asks through the wood of the door.

“You damn well know you can, there’s not much I can do to stop you.” Zoro’s gruff voice answers back. Sanji bristles but decides to keep his cool a little longer.

“May I come in?” He rephrases. All he gets in response to that though is a grunt so with a roll of his eyes and a brief mutter of ‘why do I even bother?’ Sanji slides through the door.

Zoro’s sitting on the edge of the tub holding a bloody washcloth to his head. He doesn’t look too pale and head wounds tend to look worse than they are.

“Let me see.” He orders, waving away Zoro’s hand. Zoro grumbles and pulls the bloodied cloth away. It’s a small cut, about an inch long and there’s a nasty looking bruise forming around it too. Blood oozes thickly out of the cut now that Zoro’s pulled the cloth away.

“That’ll bleed for a while. You’re probably just sucking it out with that absorbent cloth though. You’re better off just disinfecting it and putting a bandage on.” Sanji suggests, kneeling at Zoro’s feet.

Zoro gets the relevant medical supplies. Sanji is pleased that Zoro at least has the forethought to own them but is a little worried that they look fairly well used and replaced, why does Zoro need them often enough to warrant that? Zoro gingerly dabs at the cut, wincing every time it touches his skin. Sanji rolls his eyes and presses Zoro’s hand against the cut properly, Zoro hisses and swears at the sensation.

“Don’t be a baby.” Sanji teases, leaning close into Zoro to agitate him. Zoro pauses and seems to study every part of Sanji’s face for a second, once again Sanji feels like he’s missing out on something intrinsically human but the moment passes and Zoro looks a little sad for some reason.

“Does this always happen?” Sanji asks curiously.

“Pretty much. Tell someone that you’re speaking on behalf of someone that they love and they get angry or scared. Being clocked with a phone is new though. Better than being shot at though. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than being punched.” Zoro shrugs sadly.

“Zoro…” he breathes sadly. He doesn’t deserve that.

“It’s not like I even ever ask for money for doing this, not that I would, it’s not right. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want to do this but I have to. I can’t just let people like Usopp suffer, even if they didn’t turn into those things it’d still be wrong. But it doesn’t mean that I’m okay with people just…” Zoro trails off with a wince a touches the cut on his head. He sighs deeply and presses cotton to it before starting to wreathe a bandage around his head.

After Zoro cleans up they go back out into the main room where Zoro wearily sits down on the sofa. He looks over to Usopp by the window with an apologetic expression on his face.

“I’m sorry Usopp. If she doesn’t go and find what ever it was that you bought her and believe me then I’ll find another way of stopping Kuro, even if I have to get the police involved.” Zoro apologises.

“Don’t apologise Zoro! You were a true hero! If we have to go back again then we have to go back, it’s not a problem. I believe in you!” Usopp declares with a big thumbs up and a cheesy grin at Zoro. Despite himself a smile quirks at the edge of Zoro’s sad expression.

“Anyway, it should be your turn Sanji!” Usopp announces turning to look at Sanji.

“Me?” Sanji blinks startled, Zoro from his place on the sofa looks just as perplexed.

“Yeah! Like Zoro said, Kaya might go and change her mind on her own. And you’re running out of time too, let’s do something to help you now.” Usopp smiles.

Sanji is lost for words, that’s pretty kind of Usopp especially since he has less time left before changing than Sanji does but he’s not going to stop the man he supposes. But what else really was there to do?

“It’d be nice to find a motive. I don’t know who would want to kill Sanji, I mean, he’s not that annoying.” Zoro smirks at him.

“Shut it, shithead.” Sanji snaps.

“People kill for the same reasons, jealousy – you get lovers doing that a lot, anger, killing for silence – like Usopp here, killing for something someone has, revenge… but none of those seem to fit Sanji here.” Zoro sighs despondently.

“It’d be nice if I had a little more evidence to look at, I don’t even have the show that Sanji was on before he died, they didn’t air it because you died.” Zoro adds sadly. There is only so much that a man on his computer can dig up without being some kind of super hacker, which Zoro isn’t.

“Wait, wait, you were on TV before you died? What network?” Usopp enquires, suddenly enthusiastic.

“I don’t know. The show was ‘the national cooking showdown’ if that helps.” He shrugs, he can’t remember details about which network it was, what relevance did that have to anything?

“Hey! I worked for that network! I used to do all of their set design, painting and stuff. Their offices are just downtown where I worked, they’d have the footage stored there digitally!” the crazy haired ghost enthuses.

“Do you think you could get me in there?” the green head asks perking up noticeably.

“Sure can!” Usopp grins.

Zoro makes and excited little noise and starts packing up his laptop into his bag. They have a small fight when Zoro tries to leave in his bloodstained clothes. Sanji points out that just because they were clean on this morning doesn’t mean that they’re clean now and it’s socially unacceptable to go out in blood covered clothes, even if it is your own blood. Zoro grouses about that but eventually changes.

 

Dark is falling now as Zoro sneaks through the edges of the network’s property followed and directed by two ghosts. Usopp guides him expertly through the place, knowing just where to duck out of view of the cameras and giving Zoro all of the codes to the doors as they meet them. They only come up against one physical lock but Sanji is able to unlock that one from the inside and let Zoro in.

Under Usopp’s direction Zoro downloads the relevant files for all the cameras that were filming during the show as well as the final cut of the show that they were going to air too. They then manage to sneak back out of the building without anyone noticing that they were even there.

They’re about halfway home when Usopp pauses and touches his chest, he looks unnerved.

“I feel strange.” He says nervously, his hand over where his heart would be if he was still alive.

“It looks like she believed you after all, I guess whatever you left her convinced her.” Zoro smiles gently at Usopp. The long nosed guy gasps and starts to glow brilliantly gold from the inside out, he holds his hands up before his astonished face as the light that he’s radiating glows brighter and brighter until Usopp becomes indistinguishable from the glow around him. The light feels like sunshine on his skin and Sanji gets a sudden impression of blue skies and laughter. Suddenly the light winks out leaving them both alone on the dark street with Usopp gone.

“That’s what happens when you move on?” Sanji gasps in awe. Zoro nods affirmatively with a small smile on his lips.

“What happens after that?” he asks curiously as he and the marimo turn to walk the rest of the way home together.

“No idea.” Zoro shrugs and hefts his laptop bag that may well hold the secret that’ll enable Sanji to find out just what happens next for himself.


	8. I'm not okay (I promise), My Chemical Romance

Sanji has a lot of time to think now that he’s dead, there’s nothing else to do except talk to Zoro. And since Zoro’s human he’s got other stuff he needs to be doing like working or sleeping. So Sanji spends his time thinking. That old line about ‘there’ll be time to sleep when I’m dead’ is crap, he doesn’t sleep at all now. This is why in the small hours of the morning, when Zoro is just asleep from getting back from work an hour ago, Sanji is floating in the air outside Zoro’s apartment building. It’s a good thing that he’s awake too because if he could sleep like a living person he wouldn’t have spotted Smoker walking towards Zoro’s building, trailing a stream of cigar smoke behind him. 

“What’re you doing here?” Sanji muses to himself and floats down for a look. Smoker enters Zoro’s building and without paying much attention walks up the stairs until he arrives at Zoro’s front door. Sanji’s curiosity is aroused, why does Smoker know where Zoro lives off by heart?

Smoker hammers loudly on the door until it’s eventually yanked open by a pissed off looking Zoro. Zoro’s got dark circles under his eyes, his pyjamas are crumpled and his hair is pointing every which way. He looks a fright and his unpleasant expression directed at Smoker isn’t helping the overall look of him.

“What?” Zoro demands gruffly.

“I should be asking you the same thing.” Smoker says with his arms folded across his chest.

“What?” Zoro repeats sounding confused and irritated at the same time.

“I’m talking about this. Last night the police arrested this man for trying to commit murder for a young woman’s inheritance, he’s also under investigation for the murder of a young man who tried to warn her.” Smoker says flicking open the newspaper under his arm and showing it to Zoro. The psychic manages to keep his face in a neutral scowl for a moment whilst he glances at the paper, feigning ignorance at the story.

“Well, good. Someone managed to stop a criminal all by themselves and reveal their other crimes too, good thing some people in this city know how to do police work because your department couldn’t find its ass with both hands.” Zoro retorts, looking up from the paper and shooting Smoker a hostile look. It seems that Zoro is a lot less pleasant to the man when he doesn’t want a favour. Interesting, Zoro is anti-social and awkward but not so much hostile as a knee-jerk reaction, what’s Smoker done?

“Funny thing about that ‘by herself’ thing. She said that a scruffy looking, green haired, loudmouthed guy turned up at her house and told her all about it. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” Smoker presses. 

“No.” Zoro answers in a very bad impression of nonchalance. 

“Don’t lie to me you little weirdo, I know it was you. My question is how did you know what to tell her?” the cop demands with a scowl.

“He’s not a weirdo!” Sanji snaps and kicks through Smoker’s back making him shudder suddenly. A smirk quirks at the edge of Zoro’s mouth as he tries not to look at Sanji with Smoker standing just there.

“He’s just fishing, Zoro. If he had any proof you’d already be down the station, right?” Sanji points out and sticks his hand through Smoker’s head for good measure.

“Cold?” Zoro asks with a slight smirk as Smoker tries to repress another shiver. 

“Your building is freezing, so yeah. Now answer my question!” the cop says snappishly. 

“Hasn’t this asshole ever heard of the word please? And doesn’t this guy have better things to do?” Sanji snorts. 

“I didn’t tell her anything, and even if I had, that’s not a crime. Shouldn’t you be doing some actual police work instead of bothering me?” Zoro replies, apparently feeling buoyed by Sanji’s support. 

“Don’t get smart with me, kid.” Smoker orders with a glare that makes Zoro shrink back behind his door a little. 

“I’m not- that’s not what I-” the green head flounders.

“If you’re involved in something Zoro, like Kuro’s gang or something, that’s giving you this information then you need to tell me. People could get hurt if you don’t.” the white haired man says scoldingly. Zoro’s face darkens at that comment.

“What difference does it make to you anyway? When I tell you that someone’s committed a crime or that you’ve made a mistake you don’t do shit about it! People don’t die because of what I do, they die because of what you don’t!” Zoro shouts, his rage giving him a voice. 

“You can’t be angry about your parents forever Zoro.” Smoker says quietly.

“Sure I can! You promised me that you’d catch the person who killed them and you didn’t! You said that you’d do your best to work out if Robin’s death actually was an accident and you just gave up! You said that you’d bring the gang members who killed Ace and Luffy to justice and you never caught anyone! What do you even DO?! Even if I did tell Kaya about Kuro then someone’s life was saved and a murder was solved, that’s more than you can say!” Zoro yells furiously. 

“Cases don’t always pan out like you want them to Zoro, you need evidence to convict people in court. And I get that it’s frustrating, but you can’t go meddling in other people’s cases like this, what if you’d been killed?” Smoker insists angrily. 

“What does it matter? There’s no one left alive to miss me!” Zoro shouts and slams the door straight in Smoker’s face.

“Jerk.” Sanji says disdainfully to Smoker as he floats through the front door after Zoro. 

“I never told you her name!” Smoker shouts through the door, Zoro smacks his head in the realisation of his mistake but says nothing and stalks off down the corridor. 

Zoro flings the paper at the living room wall and throws himself down on the sofa face down. Sanji decides not to say anything and instead decides to wait for Zoro to make some kind of move. Sanji certainly isn’t going to say that he can see Smoker’s point, if the cop can’t get enough evidence to convict someone in court then there’s not much that he can do, however if he can’t get that evidence because his police force is incompetent then that’s another matter. Still, if he was Smoker he’d probably be a bit suspicious of where Zoro was getting all of his knowledge too. 

He glances down at the paper on the floor and looks at the picture of Kaya, she looks determined and strong, it’s a better look on her than grief. He stares at the picture for a moment more before noticing what’s different. 

“Guess we know what “surprise” Usopp had planned for her at his house. Come check this out.” Sanji grins, motioning Zoro over. The psychic grumbles but makes his way over to the fallen paper and picks it up. 

“What am I looking for?” He asks eventually as he rubs his eye sleepily.

“Look at her hand, her left hand.” Sanji grins and points. On her hand is a sparkling ring, on her ring finger no less. Usopp had been planning to ask her to marry him, it was romantic and sweet and Sanji would know, he loves that stuff.

“Poor Kaya.” Zoro says instead. Sanji slowly realises that whilst the ring might be a touching reminder of Usopp for her it’s no doubt also hurting her too, reminding her of what she should have had. Just like how he was reminded of how he and Zoro could have been friends if he hadn’t died. They both look at the picture with mixed emotions for a few moments longer.

“Well, I’m awake now. I might as well start watching that footage.” Zoro says eventually in a slightly numb voice. 

“Good idea.” Sanji chirps happy for the distraction and settles down next to Zoro who’s turning his laptop on as he speaks. 

They first watch the final cut version together, as it would have been shown on TV. Sanji watches it with the critical eye of a chef and out of habit starts dissecting all of the things that he can do better next time until he sadly realises that there won’t be a next time. He winces a little inside at how hammed up and over the top he is when he wins, Creuset looks fuming to have lost to a nobody and especially when he’s rubbing it in that way.

“You’re a real gracious winner I see.” Zoro says sarcastically.

“I… may have gone a little far.” Sanji concedes, remembering Robin’s harsh words. 

Zoro then starts queuing up the rest of the video feeds to watch in order, he starts with the one on Creuset. Sanji finds some interest in watching the other man cook up close, he was too busy on the day with focusing on his own food to worry about anyone else. That’s one thing that Zeff always taught him that he always respected, when you’re cooking you can’t be worrying about anyone else’s problems or anyone else’s drama, it’s all about the food. 

He’s always endeavoured to put things aside when he cooks, it’s almost meditative for him. And yes, he can still maintain a conversation whilst doing it, the Baratie gave him that skill, but it’s never anything more than banter. 

Technically the Creuset is skilled but it seems like his mind is elsewhere after about fifteen minutes in, he started off confident and now he just looks stressed. Sanji isn’t in the shot so he can’t tell what it is that he’s doing that’s making the other man look like that. He watches the other cook glancing from his food to across the way at Sanji’s station, as the feed goes on for a few minutes he’s looking more and more often until he suddenly pauses, all his attention rapt on Sanji. He stares for a whole five seconds before flicking his attention back to his deflating meringue with a look that can only be described as murderous. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What got you that look?” Zoro asks wide eyed pausing the shot. 

“I- I don’t know.” Sanji answers honestly even though it was probably a rhetorical question.

Zoro pops the frozen feed of Creuset into a new window and opens up the file menu on his computer, after a moment of scanning he opens the camera feed that was focused on him and plays it. He notes the time on the frozen video of Creuset and opens Sanji’s feed to a minute before that time and plays it. 

An image of him at his finest bursts onto the screen, he isn’t being interrupted or distracted by the host and he’s just… cooking. His face shows focus and joy at what he’s doing. He remembers this moment, the sauce was coming together perfectly and he was in his element completely. Zoro watches the video silently as it plays on. 

The video Sanji puts his hand into his jacket quickly and pulls out his blacked out bottle of herbs, he unscrews the cap and takes a sniff. Pausing first he tests the sauce with a spoon and adds pepper, still holding his bottle of herbs in his left hand. 

“Oh, Sanji! What do you have there?” The enthused announcer asks in her perky voice, her red curls bouncing around her shoulders merrily. 

“Ah, my flower! Nothing special, just my own blend of herbs and spices. Every cook has their own signature mix and this is mine.” His video self smiles gallantly at her. 

“How exciting! So this is your big secret ingredient!” the announcer says peppily and watches as he sprinkles in his cut herbs and spices.

“You could say that!” the video version of him laughs happily and tastes the sauce and grins madly. 

Zoro pauses the video at that moment and minimises it into its own little window side by side beside Creuset’s, the times match up exactly. 

“You didn’t tell me about this.” Zoro says after a moment of silence, his eyes fixed on the screen. 

“What’s to tell? There’s nothing special in there, just herbs that I cut and prepared myself – we were allowed to do that before the competition.” Sanji shrugs, suddenly he gets what Zoro is getting at.

“You think I cheated!” He accuses Zoro, horrified that his friend would think something so base of him.

“I don’t, but it sure looks like he does.” Zoro answers glumly looking at Creuset’s frozen murderous face.

“But… but it was all supervised.” He protests weakly, surely he can’t have been killed over herbs?

“Oh, and you couldn’t possibly have bribed the supervising person? Zeff owns that whole restaurant of yours, he could have come up with the money to do it, even if he scraped the barrel it’d be a sensible investment. A young, attractive guy like you wins a competition like that from out of nowhere? Your business would have exploded with customers.” Zoro says harshly, finally looking at him. 

Sanji is frozen staring at Zoro, he doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t cheat, Goddamnit he didn’t! But, he doesn’t think that Zoro is actually accusing him of doing so, he’s just… pointing out the obvious conclusion. Zoro’s face suddenly softens sadly.

“This is just speculation.” Zoro murmurs quietly and turns back to the laptop and plays Sanji’s feed. Unfrozen in time his other self slides the bottle back into his jacket pocket and continues cooking. 

“Did you have that on you still? At the after party?” the psychic asks gently.

Sanji searches his admittedly patchy memory, he doesn’t remember taking the bottle out. Numbly he nods at continues to stare at his innocent, unsuspecting and living self. Zoro plucks Sanji’s autopsy report off of the floor and flicks through it.

“Personal affects: lighter – broken causing shards in legs, one pack of tobacco – half full, rolling papers – one missing, four keys on a chain – broken and removed from hip, wallet… there’s no bottle here. Hm.” Zoro scans through the laundry list of the rest of Sanji’s injuries, thankfully silently. 

“There’s no mention of glass if your chest or a smashed bottle. If that was in your jacket when you fell, it’d be here.” Zoro says gently. 

Sanji sits at Zoro’s side in silence, he wishes that he could cry. If he was still alive he’s sure that he’d be bawling by now, but he just doesn’t have the prerequisite parts to do so. 

“Robin was right, I brought this on myself.” He says tightly to himself. If only he’d not been so stupid, if he’d thought about how something like that could look, if he’d not been so cocky about it. If, if, if!

“What?” Zoro blinks at him in shock.

“Oh shit.” Sanji groans. He wasn’t supposed to mention Robin, Zoro wasn’t supposed to know about her. 

“I… I followed you to work one night. Invisibly. I was just… curious I guess. Robin showed up, she talked to me. Said that you couldn’t see her because you knew her when she was alive, said it was some psychic rules bs.” He explains roughly.

“Robin? MY Robin?” Zoro asks blankly, his eyes wide.

“Tall? Beautiful? Blue, slightly terrifying eyes? A little brutally honest perhaps?” he laughs numbly. 

“That’d be her. Well, shit.” Zoro replies clearly reeling from the news. He stares straight ahead again at the laptop, clearly not looking at it though at he processes this information.

“What a bitch.” Zoro eventually concludes.

“What?!” Sanji squawks horrified at this sudden declaration from a guy who was supposed to be like family to her.

“Don’t get me wrong, I loved Robin. She was more than just family to me, family are people who love you because their DNA tells them to. Robin cared about me when I was no one to her, she chose me to be family. But, hell, the woman could make a saint feel guilty.” Zoro laughs in a worryingly hollow sounding voice. 

Zoro turns to him then, his eyes sincere and honest. He touches his hand to the spectral outline of Sanji’s shoulder, there’s no substance there but Sanji can feel the warmth from his skin seeping into the… the essence of him. 

“This wasn’t your fault. Regardless of how dumb or cocky you might have been. Even if you’d been a total dick about the contest and waved your title in his face you wouldn’t have deserved this. He, or… whoever did this, had no right to end your life. There’s no justification for what that person took from you and you didn’t deserve it, nothing you did brought this upon you, this is not your fault.” Zoro insists sincerely. 

Sanji wants to cry. He wants to bawl and weep and sob at the unfairness of all of this. Zoro is being kind enough to move him to tears and he can’t! But he does feel angry. Angry, upset and hurt.

“But its not like I had nothing to do with this, I know I didn’t deserve to be tossed out of a window but if I hadn’t made him suspicious or been an idiot about this whole thing then I could actually be alive and here with you rather than-” He cuts himself off harshly and waves his hand through Zoro’s arm to demonstrate his point.

“If you were alive we wouldn’t be here, that’s sort of the point.” Zoro grins wryly at him.

“I don’t mean here solving murders, I mean here. In your place, with you. Just… hanging out or whatever. Robin showed me what could have been, we would have met right after the competition. We could have…” He trails off again though. He doesn’t know what he could have had, but he knows down to his cold dead bones that he wants it. Zoro looks off sharply at that and stares back at the laptop screen. 

“You wouldn’t be here. Look at you.” Zoro says emptily as he watches the living video Sanji doing his thing.

“You’re… talented, smart, ambitious… attractive. Someone like you wouldn’t- you wouldn’t be here.” He continues, his face is almost terrifyingly blank.

“I would so! You don’t get to decide that! Robin showed me what would have happened, we clicked, we would have-” Sanji protests.

“Then what Robin showed you was a lie! She’s not above doing that you know. We would never have been anything!” Zoro snarls, forcing himself to his feet and turning his back on Sanji. He starts to object again but Zoro overrides him.

“I mean, are you stupid or something? You’re the one who followed me to work despite me telling you not to. Did you notice my hordes of friends there? Or how overwhelmed I am with phone calls from everyone who likes me? The closest person that I have that treats me like a human being is Smoker and he thinks I’m a ‘weirdo’! People who don’t see dead people can sense that there’s something wrong with me, and they hate it. You would have sensed it too. So don’t say that it would have been anything else. You’re nice Sanji, believe me I know, but even you wouldn’t have looked twice at me.” Zoro shouts angrily at him. 

Sanji’s temper snaps at that. How dare Zoro insult him like that? How dare Zoro accuse him of being shallow like those assholes he works with? Didn’t all the time that they’d spent together mean anything to Zoro or hadn’t the man learned anything about him? His rage balls up inside of him until Sanji feels it practically spiralling out of his chest. He focuses on that power and lunges forward knocking Zoro off of his feet and flat onto his back on the ground. He scrambles quickly and forces Zoro’s hands onto the ground and leans over Zoro having pinned the rest of his weight by sitting on his hips. 

“You listen to me, asshole. You don’t get to tell me what I would and wouldn’t have done, I’m the expert on me. And I like you, I like you when I’m dead and I’d have liked you when I was alive.” He snaps at the trapped man. He can see through his translucent fingers that he’s going to leave bruises on Zoro’s wrists from gripping so hard. 

Zoro’s face is a mixture of startled and embarrassed. Sanji presses on whilst he still has the power to hold Zoro down and make him listen.

“You’re strong and you’re brave, you’re selfless and dedicated… I’d give anything not to have died. I could’ve… we could have…” Sanji trails off. He drops his gaze from Zoro’s eyes because the psychic’s expression is just too open for Sanji to look at, it feels almost wrong to see such honest emotion. Zoro’s look throws off pain, loneliness and a deep open affection, clearly Sanji isn’t the only one who wishes he wasn’t dead. He drops his gaze to Zoro’s mouth because it’s easier to look at than his dark, hopeful eyes. 

An almost inaudible gasp escapes Zoro’s lips before he bites into his bottom lip with his teeth, as if to restrain the sound that’s already released.

A strange part of Sanji’s mind whispers to him temptingly. Kiss him. His eyes widen at the thought and at the same moment he feels… movement? His sense of touch isn’t so acute now that he doesn’t have a body, but he can feel Zoro’s warmth and he can feel pressure to an extent. He glances down at himself and under his own gaze he becomes more transparent. Suddenly he realises what that sense of movement that he’d felt had been. Zoro is… well… ah… excited? Either that or he’s managed to smuggle something strange into his pants that Sanji hadn’t noticed until now. 

He glances up at Zoro. The marimo’s face is scarlet and Sanji can read his expressions as they war on his face, lust, shame, embarrassment, anger.

“Get off of me!” Zoro yells and tries to shove at Sanji. Suddenly he’s intangible again, the rage that had fuelled his brief physicality abated in his surprise. Zoro scrambles to his feet and moves through Sanji. He stands, taut and tense, practically vibrating with embarrassment. 

“Zoro-” He starts, he doesn’t want Zoro to think… well, he’s not certain what he wants Zoro to think. It feels like too much of his brain is missing and he’s not quite getting this situation, like he’s been not quite getting loads of things since he’s been dead. He’s sure that if he had a body right now he’d know what he was supposed to be feeling, but he doesn’t. His moment of hesitation costs him though as Zoro interrupts him.

“Just go!” the man snaps.

“No, Zoro we need to-” He tries again. Besides, it’s not like Zoro can make him leave. Just as that thought passes through his mind Zoro shouts something. 

Sanji isn’t sure that he knows what it is that Zoro shouted, it’s more than just sound, it’s a force of some kind. It makes Zoro glow for a moment and over his skin flows words in a language and script that Sanji can’t read in letters made of light. In an instant the words explode outwards like a net working in reverse. They shove him hard and hurl him backwards out of Zoro’s home. He’s through the other side of the building before he manages to catch himself. 

Quickly he flies back towards Zoro but he smacks into the faint white bubble as he reaches the door to Zoro’s place. The words slide incandescently across the surface of the bubble like the tiny rainbow reflections on a soap bubble in a pan. He shoves at it but it doesn’t budge. 

“Zoro.” He whines sadly and pushes with futility at the barrier.

It seems that Zoro can keep him out.


	9. Between two lungs - Florence and the machine

Despite Sanji’s insistent pushing on the barrier around Zoro’s home he can’t get in at all. No amount of kicking, clawing or swearing at the thing will make it budge. He’s got no idea WHAT Zoro did to put this thing up, all he can hope is that it’s not taking too much out of Zoro to keep it up. He decides that he knows when he’s beat and flies off to where Zoro works, he know that the moss head has work today so he should turn up there sooner or later. 

He waits patiently, because patience is now something that he’s very good at, and sure enough Zoro does turn up. Sanji hesitates from his vantage point above the rooftop though, Zoro looks worn out, stressed and tired. He doesn’t want to piss the guy off further, nor does he want Zoro pulling the same trick twice and kicking him out of this building too. Sanji watches mournfully as Zoro’s lousy co-workers leave, no doubt after foolishly ignoring the brilliant man again. 

He feels stupid about embarrassing Zoro, not that he’d intended to, but clearly Zoro took his surprise as… judgement? Mocking? Who knows. He doesn’t… feel anything for Zoro. At first he’d thought that it was because he wasn’t interested but then he thought of all the pretty ladies that he’d been interested in over the years and their memories didn’t elicit a mental reaction from him either. He could recognise in a disinterested observational way that they were pretty but he could also do that when thinking of Zoro’s honest eyes, his smart mouth and interesting piercings. It comforts him though to know that he’s not repulsed by Zoro’s reaction, and he knows that he could be, the mental image of Patty or Carne experiencing a similar thing for him makes him feel queasy. Which, considering as he presently lacks a stomach, is impressive in its own horrifying way.

It’s all tied to him not having a body. If he had then he could feel something for Zoro, and he’s sure that he would if he could. If he was still alive and in possession of his own body then he and Zoro could… well, they could do a lot. But he’s not in possession of his body, or anyone else’s for that matter.

Wait…

Hm, that isn’t a bad idea. 

He looks down at the parking area in front of the shop and sees a fairly decent looking guy getting out of his car. Ghosts could possess people couldn’t they? You saw it in movies and TV all the time. 

He glides down until he’s in front of the guy and gives him an assessing look. It wasn’t going to be as simple as just flying through him, after all he’d stuck his hand through Smoker and kicked through Zoro enough times to know that just doing that didn’t land you a body. 

Instead he turns his body so that he’s facing the same way that this guy is and with a focused sigh he lets himself slide backwards through the air until he’s occupying the same space as this guy. He tries to think about it like putting on a coat, he thinks of it like wearing this guy.

His knees buckle from under him and he catches himself just in time with his hand on the roof of his car. He pushes himself up on shaky legs and stares. No, not his hand, not his legs or his car either. But still, a hand. He wiggles the long blunt fingers before him in disbelief, feels the skin alternately bend and stretch as he moves, he feels the steady pulse of blood rush through the living flesh at his command. A buoyant laugh escapes him. He’s alive!

He crouches suddenly and takes in the face in the car’s wing mirror, it’s not his face but he hadn’t really been expecting it to be. He touches the skin of the face that he’s wearing in amazement as a shuddering awed breath escapes real living lungs. He’s really alive again. 

Zoro!

The thought snaps him up like a puppet with its strings yanked on. He needs to see Zoro! He takes a couple of fast steps until he can see Zoro slouched in the chair at the till with his feet on the counter. Oh god. Zoro is… gorgeous. Okay, not in the conventionally attractive sense, he’s no Calvin Klein model but his face is structured around defined cheekbones and deep soulful eyes. As he sees him Sanji is struck by a wave of lust that hits him and coils in the pit of his stomach like an aggressive snake. He wants to burst in there and grab Zoro by his stupid work shirt, fling him to the floor and divest him of his scruffy clothes. He wants to hold Zoro down and run his hands over his lithe naked body, he needs to feel him burning up with heat from excitement. He wants to make Zoro whine and moan, he wants to hear him beg for release, he wants to- oh boy. 

He steps back and leans on the hood of this guys car whilst he tries to catch his breath. Okay, well… that answers the question about his intentions towards Zoro. But, whilst all those things sound like brilliant ideas he should perhaps… ease into this. Zoro’s not going to know its him and he doesn’t want Zoro to panic thinking that some stranger is trying to molest him or something. That would probably end badly for both of them. No, he needs to keep it in… well, in this guy’s pants for the time being. 

He has to go in there though and he finds his feet walking him in there like a moth must be drawn to a flame. As he enters the shitty shop he sees that Zoro has moved from his position at the till and is instead stacking a shelf with an air of boredom so thick around him that you could cut it with a knife. Zoro has his back to him which gives Sanji a fantastic view of Zoro’s ass. Sanji’s hadn’t ever especially been an ass guy- hell, he hadn’t even until now been a guy guy but wow.

“Zoro.” A reverent voice says. Oh, it was him. His voice, well, this guy’s voice. He’d spoken without really realising it. 

Zoro turns and levels him a suspicious and uncertain look, probably wondering how this stranger knows his name.

“Uh, do I know you?” Zoro asks with a frown. Oh wow, Zoro is sexy with a frown, he looks all strong and determined with his jaw set in that contemptuous way. Sanji wants to kiss him, he wants to know what Zoro’s tongue tastes like and hear the excited little gasp of surprise as it flows past Zoro’s lips onto his. His whole body is tingling with touch him, touch him, touch him. Before he can stop himself he’s stepped right into Zoro’s space and bracketed him up against the shelf. He’s a little taller than Zoro in this body and he doesn’t like that much, they’re supposed to be the same height, but he’s not going to complain about the delicious sight of Zoro’s lips parted in surprise. 

“Zoro- I…” he starts trying to explain himself. But where does he start? He reaches up and touches the side of Zoro’s face, his skin is so warm to the touch. Not that he gets to experience it long as Zoro jolts away and grabs Sanji’s borrowed hand by the middle finger and pulls back until Sanji either has to go with it or have his hand snapped off. 

“Ow, hey! That hurts asshole!” He snaps, snatching his hand back.

“Sanji?!” Zoro accuses angrily, scowling up into Sanji’s eyes. Or rather… this guy’s eyes.

“Zoro, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t… didn’t mean to react like… well, I didn’t mean to not react. It’s kind of hard when you’re dead to get this stuff but believe me, now that I’m alive again I’m more than-” He starts excited by the prospect of all that he can do with Zoro now that he’s not a ghost.

“You’re not alive again! You’re still dead, you’re just stealing someone else’s body!” Zoro snaps shoving him away. 

“What does it matter? I’m trying to tell you about how I feel! It’s still me in here Zoro, isn’t that what’s important here?” Sanji demands angrily. It’s pure torture being in a real live body again and not being able to touch Zoro. 

“No, what’s important here is that this body isn’t yours! Look!” Zoro retorts and steps forward back into Sanji’s own personal space. Zoro’s arm wraps around his waist and his whole body relaxes into Zoro as the feeling of oh God yes permeates his entire being. Zoro’s hand slides down into the back pocket of his jeans and Sanji wonders how Zoro went from fighting him to trying to grope him. That is until Zoro’s hand pulls back and he steps out of Sanji’s space again with a wallet in his hand. Zoro flicks it open angrily.

“Mr Rob Andrews, aged 23, oh look here; a picture of his wife, it matches the wedding ring on his finger. You’re just gonna steal this guy’s life? Break his wife’s heart? Look at her, how is that fair?” Zoro demands, holding the opened wallet up to Sanji’s borrowed face. Inside is the guy’s driver’s licence and a picture of him and his pretty wife at a restaurant, the guy isn’t even aware of the camera, nuzzled as he is in his lady’s neck. The pretty woman herself though is smiling up at the camera and Sanji with all the happiness and love in the world written on her face. Guilt wells up and chokes Sanji in his new throat. 

“I… I don’t want to be dead. I want…” Sanji trails off, his hand tangling in Zoro’s cheap work polo shirt. He tugs at it and Zoro obligingly steps a little closer, it’s obvious what he wants and obvious as well that Zoro wants it too. 

“I don’t want to be a ghost. I don’t want to be dead, not when I can see everything that I’m missing. Can’t I just-” He chokes himself off because there’s no solution to this. It’s not like he can just borrow someone else’s body either. Even if he tried to pick someone who wouldn’t be missed that person still had some kind of right to their body. Hell, Zoro himself fit the criteria for someone that Sanji might pick, someone with no one to miss them, someone with lots of free time and an unimportant job. He couldn’t do that to Zoro, so he certainly couldn’t do it to anyone else.

“Sanji, if I had the power to make you alive again I would, I’d do anything to. But I don’t, all I can do is help you find who killed you. Even if this wasn’t horribly immoral,” Zoro says gesturing to Sanji’s stolen body, “it wouldn’t stop you from decaying. It’s not fair but…” Zoro stops searching for words.

“But that’s life.” Sanji finishes for him in a hollow voice. Zoro sighs but doesn’t disagree. 

“I’ll put him back where I found him. But before I go… could I?” He asks hopefully as he catches the corner of Zoro’s strong jaw with his hand and tilts Zoro’s face up, running his thumb across Zoro’s lower lip. Before he goes he would at least like one chance to kiss Zoro.

“No.” Zoro answers flatly. Sanji hates it but he understands, he doesn’t want to be kissed by some stranger, in a strange jealous way he doesn’t want to kiss Zoro via this strange married man either. But he does want to kiss Zoro, so much. He settles for snagging the back of Zoro’s neck and leaning in to press their foreheads together for a brief moment. 

He drags himself quickly away from Zoro and stumbles back outside, he doesn’t look back, he’s not sure that he could resist temptation if he saw Zoro standing there watching him with sad eyes. He climbs into the guy’s car and sits down in the drivers seat. He breathes slowly out and feels himself slip free of the man whose body he’d borrowed. The guy shakes his head disorientated but apparently none the wiser. He unsteadily gets out of his car and, looking a little confused, enters the shop and distractedly buys a tub of ice cream, some peanut butter and the biggest packet of cheese Doritos that Sanji’s ever seen.

“Pregnant wife.” The guy laughs self consciously as Zoro rings him up. 

“Congratulations.” Zoro says simply and shoots Sanji a quick look. Not that he needs to, Sanji feels bad enough about what he nearly just did as is. 

After the guy leaves he settles down on the counter by Zoro in silence. 

What can he say? What is there to say?

“I’m sorry that I exorcised you.” Zoro apologises quietly, resolutely not looking at Sanji.

“That’s what that was?” he says surprised as he looks down at the marimo.

“What did you think it was?” the psychic frowns up at him. 

“I don’t know, magic?” he shrugs, he’s got no idea about this ghost stuff, Zoro’s the expert here.

“Pft, there’s no such thing as magic.” Zoro snorts.

“Said the psychic to the ghost.” Sanji retorts flatly, making Zoro snigger. 

After that the two of them fall into easy chatter for the rest of Zoro’s shift. They talk about inconsequential shit, they talk about the Baratie, they talk about the customers that Zoro has and argue about who would beat who in a fight between famous people. Sanji finds himself smiling happily, dead or otherwise there’s no doubt in his mind that he and Zoro just work together. When Zoro’s different, but apparently equally shitty, co-workers come to relieve him in the morning Zoro leaves with a smile on his face and Sanji striding along invisibly at his side. 

 

That day Zoro sleeps for a long time and lets himself be coerced into cooking a real meal again by Sanji. It’s over the duck stir fry that Zoro brings up the current topic of conversation.

“I’ve been thinking,” He starts thoughtfully.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Sanji adds automatically, Zoro ignores him and continues anyway.

“We should go to the Baratie, to see if Zeff has your suspicious little bottle. If not then it’s likely that Creuset guy took it, which makes him our top suspect.” He finishes, clearly proud of his deduction and his plan. 

“I don’t think Zeff is gonna just let you rifle through his cabinets, even if he does have it I don’t think he’d give it to you if you asked. You’re gonna have to break in if you want to try and find it there.” Sanji points out. Zeff might be willing to help with Zoro’s investigation, but he’s a private man deep down and Sanji suspects that if Zeff has in his possession one of the last things that Sanji touched before he died then he’s not going to give it up. 

“I can get you in there. I used to sneak in and out of that place at night all the time, I’m the only one who ever locked up properly.” Sanji grins cheekily. 

“Okay then.” Zoro nods in agreement. 

That night they walk there together, long after the Baratie is usually closed. The night is still and quiet, leaving them both illuminated by the stars and the waning moon. Sanji wonders if he’s like the moon, his cycle slowly waning until he disappears completely. But he supposes not, the moon eventually reappears and over and over again runs through its cycle. Where as he’ll eventually go, or decay.

“Zoro,” He asks quietly as they walk. The green head grunts in response.

“What happens after you die?” he asks with trepidation. 

“I’m assuming you mean after the ghost bit?” Zoro says with a raised eyebrow at him.

“Ha ha Mr. Pedantic. Yes, after this. When I turn into shiny light and vanish like Usopp did, what happens then?” Sanji clarifies with a roll of his eyes, God Zoro is so annoying sometimes. 

Zoro shoves his hands awkwardly in his pockets at this and looks up into the night sky. He seems to study the stars and the moon himself for a few long moments before beginning to answer.

“Honestly? I don’t know. No one’s ever come back to tell me. But, if you really did see Robin then there’s something after this. A next life maybe, who knows?” Zoro muses wistfully.

“Hm, I wouldn’t have had you down for the type to believe in reincarnation, that kind of thing never made sense to me. I mean, there are more people alive now than there used to be. Besides, I think with your selfless behaviour you’d probably go to heaven.” He smiles at the marimo who for a split second looks touched before his face splits into a sneaky grin.

“That’d be nice, but it’d get boring for a while without you there.” He says smugly, Sanji’s eyes widen at that.

“Did- did you just imply that I’m gonna go to hell? You shitty bastard! I’m gonna kick your ass!” He screeches and chases after the manically laughing Zoro. 

The psychic probably looks like an escaped lunatic, running down the road away from no one and laughing to himself, but Sanji doesn’t care how this looks because Zoro is happy and Sanji is too for the moment. 

Zoro isn’t happy however when he sees Sanji’s sneaky entrance to the Baratie. He doesn’t know what the guy is complaining about, all he has to do is climb the fence, balance off of the top for a moment before jumping on to the very edge of the conservatory roof, shimmying over to flick the window open and then smearing his foot off of the wall to get the traction to haul himself into the building. Sanji’s done it a million times, it’s not even hard. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Zoro gapes. Sanji’s already explained the simple method of getting into the building but it’s just left Zoro looking at him like he’s got two heads or something. Sanji supposes it might be a practice thing, he’s done it a million times so he can get in there almost on autopilot, but Zoro’s completely new to this. Even if he makes it he’ll probably be as loud as all hell and wake Zeff, which is never a good idea. 

“Hey,” He says as the idea hits him, “I could get in there!” 

“Great for you, but I’m the one who needs to get in there.” Zoro responds in a flat unimpressed voice. 

“No, stupid. I mean that I could get in there as you, possess you I mean.” He adds excitedly. 

“Promise to give me back? And to keep your hands to yourself?” Zoro asks levelling him a suspicious look. Sanji feigns outrage at the accusation but now that Zoro’s mentioned it a chance to get his hands on the man’s body is appealing in more ways than one. But, alas, they have bigger fish to fry so he nods his agreement. 

Zoro gives a resigned groan and waits. Just as before Sanji tries to back into Zoro’s space and occupy the same space that he does and reuses the mental analogy of sliding on a piece of clothing. He slips into Zoro’s form far easier than he had the other guy and in a way that suggests is nothing to do with practice. He almost feels like he belongs there, but equally a large part of him is insisting that he shouldn’t be doing this at all. That part of him wants this to be over quickly so stealthily he climbs the chain link fence and hops across the rooftop and off of the wall, through the still unlocked stairway window in the Baratie. He lands gracefully and quietly and slides the window shut behind him. 

He shimmies his way out of Zoro’s body and isn’t surprised when Zoro’s legs go a little weak before his own auto-pilot kicks back in with Sanji’s absence. The green-head shakes his head to disperse the disorientation before following Sanji’s lead down to the kitchen. 

Sanji guides Zoro over to where they keep the torch in case of power cuts, helpful also for night-time break-ins. Zoro swings the beam of the torch across the clean, glittering kitchen. Everything is put away for the day and the place is pristine, it makes Sanji’s heart a little sore to see it and to think of the others coming in here tomorrow to cook and the fact that he won’t be joining them. 

“Where would Zeff keep it?” Zoro asks in a hushed whisper as he creeps across the kitchen and curiously opens a cabinet. Although Zeff is asleep above them they don’t want to wake him up, so they have to be quiet. 

“I’m not sure, we keep the spices over here mainly.” Sanji suggests in his own whisper, although no one but Zoro can hear him. 

He leads Zoro over to the spice rack, filled as it is with a staggering variety of spices and herbs. It’s mounted on the wall, and though each cook usually takes enough for what they’re doing when cooking, this is where everything is stored at the end of the day. The beam from the torch slides over all the assorted bottles and jars but none of them are Sanji’s black bottle from the competition. 

“Maybe his desk?” Sanji suggests and slides through the locked door into Zeff’s office. He can’t see all that well in the dark but Zeff was always very clean and militaristically minimal with his spaces, Sanji doesn’t need much light to see that the bottle isn’t there either. 

“The fridge?” Zoro mumbles to himself and opens the wide door to the refrigerated room.

“Zeff wouldn’t keep it in there, shitty-moss-head.” Sanji chides him, Zoro is lucky that the door didn’t squeak horribly when he opened it, it always used to unless someone had opened it recently. 

“What is it with you and calling people shitty cook? It’s always shitty-this and shitty-that, get some new words.” Zoro shoots back under his breath. 

“Don’t you have a safe where Zeff might have kept it?” Zoro asks, lighting Sanji in the glare of the torch and making the cook squint. 

“Sure, this way. Open that cabinet door.” He instructs. Zoro does so and with a little moving around of a flour sack Zoro comes to the secret place where they keep the safe. Sanji reads him off the combination out of memory and Zoro is just about to pull the handle open when they both hear a distinctive metal clicking sound. Zoro freezes but Sanji turns to look. 

Zeff towers behind them both, he’s got a sawn off shotgun pressed into the back of Zoro’s neck threateningly. 

“Stay still, green thief.” Zeff growls. 

“I’m not stealing.” Zoro says, slowly raising his hands.

“I… I forgot to mention that he can walk like a ninja sometimes.” Sanji confesses, earning him an angry sideways scowl from the marimo. As he realises that if the fridge didn’t squeak when it opened then it probably meant that someone had indeed opened it recently and that someone might have been Zeff.

“You’re in front of my safe, about to open it no less. Turn around.” Zeff orders, jabbing Zoro in the back of the neck. Zoro winces but complies, turning slowly to face Zeff. 

“I was trying to find the bottle that Sanji had on him at the competition, the… the black one? With herbs and stuff in it. Do you, I mean… did he give it to you?” Zoro questions shakily, his eyes trained on the barrel of the gun pointed in his face.

“You couldn’t have asked me for that?” Zeff presses irritably.

“Well, you could have lied!” Zoro says flustered, still staring at the gun instead of Zeff.

“Why would I lie? Do you think I did it, brat?!” the old man demands angrily.

“No!” Zoro yelps, clearly feeling threatened. Sanji doesn’t blame him, if Zeff shot right now Zoro would be a goner.

“Well, since you brought it up… did you?” the moss-brained moron asks stupidly.

“WHAT?! ZORO!” Sanji yells angry at both Zoro’s audacity to ask his old man such a thing and his stupidity to rile a man holding a gun to his face.

“No.” Zeff grits out dangerously.

“I didn’t think so but, you know, you should always… check. Um.” Zoro flounders.

“How did you even get in here anyway? The door is locked.” The old man asks suspiciously.

“Look, Zoro, you’re terrible at this. Why not just tell him the truth?” Sanji sighs, trying to be the voice of sanity here. Zoro glances to his side at Sanji is a horrified ‘are you stupid’ sort of way. Sanji supposes that Zoro has a point, the last person he tried to tell threw a phone at him and had her guards shoot at him, probably not wise to pull on someone with a shotgun in their hand. 

“I got in through the window, Sanji told me how. Uh, before he died I mean.” Zoro says unconvincingly with a nervous grin. 

“I find it pretty hard to believe that Sanji told you how to break into his home. Who are you really?” The old man questions him, clearly displeased.

“Zoro! Just tell him, you’re sounding more and more suspicious by the second!” Sanji insists. At this rate Zoro is going to get himself shot!

“You- you know who I am. I told you last time.” Zoro lies obviously. Zeff’s eyes narrow, he doesn’t like liars as Sanji well knows. 

“You can thank me for saving your life later, idiot.” Sanji snaps and sides sideways into Zoro’s body, again it’s far easier to do so than it was to the man outside Zoro’s shop. 

“What?!” Zoro stammers out just as Sanji takes control. He stumbles a little, but his wariness about making the heavily armed Zeff jumpy keeps Zoro’s legs straight under Sanji’s control. 

“Look, I’ll tell you what’s going on. Just… get that gun a little further away, yeah?” He says with calmness that he doesn’t feel. What if Zeff loses his temper and does shoot Zoro? Then they’d both be dead and he’d be completely boned. 

Zeff looks at him suspiciously but obligingly pulls the gun a little closer to himself and out of Sanji’s borrowed face. 

“You’re not going to like this old man, but just let me explain and I can prove to you that I’m telling the truth.” Sanji says slowly. The old geezer raises an eyebrow in a gesture that Sanji over the years has learnt to interpret as ‘go on but I’m not making any promises’. 

Sanji huffs a breath in and out, even in his panic he’s able to relish the feeling of having lungs again, he needs to think about how best to explain this to Zeff. 

“Zoro is psychic, he sees dead people. The reason that I’m telling you that Zoro sees them is because I’m not him, I’m Sanji. This idiot couldn’t lie to save his life and I’d rather you didn’t shoot him so I kind of… borrowed his body. It’s me old man, it’s Sanji.” Sanji rushes out, he’s grateful that Zeff seems shocked enough to have let him get through all of that. The shock on his face quickly turns to rage though and the sawn off shotgun is quickly jabbed back into Sanji’s, or rather Zoro’s, face. 

“You sick bastard, I oughta-” Zeffs growls dangerously low, his finger wrapping around the trigger of the gun threateningly.

“I can prove it! Let me cook! If you’re gonna shoot me then what difference does it make if you give me ten minutes or not?” Sanji bursts out desperately.

Figuring that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than wait for permission he decides to act. In two quick strides he makes his way over to the kitchen counter that he’s spent so many hours at and starts pulling ingredients out. His borrowed hands fly over his ingredients making the dish that Zeff used to make him when he was kept awake with nightmares about his childhood traumas and the dish that when he was older he used to make for himself to chase nightmares away. It’s a particular spiced hot rice pudding, it’s a recipe never written down anywhere, just altered and perfected over many sleepless nights between the two of them. 

He has to focus a little more than usual in his new body as Zoro’s fingers aren’t quite as nimble and delicate as his own, but he knows his skills inside out and he knows his dish. He tries desperately to force every ounce of himself into what he’s making because if he can’t convince Zeff that he is who he is then Zoro is going to get a shotgun to the back and there’s no overstating how awful that would be. Zoro’s saving his soul, the least that Sanji can do in return is save Zoro’s life.

Sanji chances a glance over his shoulder at his old man, Zeff isn't pointing the gun at him anymore, which is a good start. In fact the gun is hanging limply and forgotten at Zeff's side. The old man's face is a picture of anguish though, so much so that Sanji takes his pan off of the burner to properly look at him.

"Old man?" Sanji asks uncertainly, his voice sounding strange through Zoro's deeper timbre. Zeff lets out a choked gasp and drops the gun fully, he stumbles back unsteadily.

"Old man!" Sanji exclaims catching his shoulder and guiding Zeff to lean against the adjacent counter before he falls clean over. Zeff is shaking under his fingers and staring at him in something close to horror.

"What are you doing here eggplant?" Zeff asks brokenly.

"I thought you'd be pleased to see me, shitty old geezer." Sanji grumbles as the relief that he’s convinced him spreads under Zoro’s skin. Still, he didn't really know what he'd expected from the old man as this hadn't been planned, but he would have hoped for a tearful hug or a joyful exclamation at his return. After all, didn't people always have things that they wished they'd said to the deceased? Especially when they'd died unexpectedly like he had.

"I'm not pleased! You're dead!" Zeff snarls furiously at him.

"I'd noticed that." He says rolling his eyes at Zeff. Zeff kicks him sharply in the shin for that, making him swear and grab the battered limb. Poor Zoro is gonna have one hell of a bruise there tomorrow.

"You're supposed to be somewhere else, in a better place. Not hanging around on earth like a bad smell!" Zeff snaps. The old man seems to deflate at that and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes with a shaky breath. Sanji realises with a terrible start that Zeff must have been comforting himself that even if he was dead he was happy in heaven or something.

"I'm trying to get there, that's why Zoro and I were here tonight. We're trying to piece together who killed me." Sanji says gently as he rests a comforting hand on his old man's shoulder.

Sanji turns back to his cooking, feeling uncomfortable at having this much talk of feelings with his old man, who he'd always loved deeply but had an incredibly stoic relationship with. He stirs the gently heating dessert in the pan and adds a sprinkle more of cinnamon whilst he's at it.

"Is there anything that I can do? To get the bastard that killed you?" Zeff asks after a moment.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Zoro, he’s the expert. He helps people like me all the time you know, dead people I mean.” He clarifies awkwardly and stirs a little more.

“We think Creuset did it. My herbs were missing and from the footage of the show he became really twitchy when I brought them out, Zoro thinks that he might have suspected I was cheating. Maybe he stole them and killed me. I can’t remember.” He explains slowly as he serves up the pudding into two bowls. Zoro’s stupid body could probably use the calories anyway.

“I’m sorry by the way.” Sanji adds as he slides Zeff’s bowl towards him. 

The old man looks up at him with a puzzled expression; and since Sanji can guess that it’s not the dessert he’s confused about he’s going to take a wild leap and guess that his last statement confused the man. 

“You warned me before the competition about not being too cocky, and I didn’t listen. So I’m sorry, not that it makes up for-OW!” Sanji yelps as Zeff kicks him again.

“You didn’t do this! Don’t you dare be sorry or I’ll kick your ass right into the afterlife myself!” Zeff orders fiercely. 

“OKAY! Shit, that hurt old man!” Sanji retorts rubbing Zoro’s ever more painful shin. 

Zeff flashes him a warning look anyway and goes about eating his pudding in manly silence. With a grumble about shitty old geezers Sanji joins him. Sanji muses over the fact that both Zoro and the old man have insisted that his death wasn’t his fault. He knows that really, if he’d have leapt out of the window it’d be his fault but he didn’t. He knows that it’s really the fault of whoever pushed him, which is likely to be Creuset, but it doesn’t change the fact that if he’d behaved differently or not joined the competition then he’d probably still be alive. It might not be his fault but he could have done something to stop it. 

“So. Where did you find this Zoro kid?” Zeff asks eventually, his moustache twitching in the darkness of the kitchen. 

“He found me actually.” Sanji answers, deciding to neatly sidestep the issue that until Zoro had walked by and… untethered him or whatever from the place that he’d died, he’d been stuck there. That’d probably upset Zeff to hear.

Still, he thinks with a smile, Zoro didn’t have to help him but he did.

“You’d actually really like him, you know? When he stops being so awkward he’s actually pretty cool to be around. He’s smart and kind, he’s really honest and fair about people, he’s annoying as hell though and he’s even more sarcastic than I am.” Sanji grins into his dessert. Zoro irritates him endlessly but it’s in a really weirdly great way, it’s fun to piss him off and fun arguing with him. 

“I don’t believe this, you’re dead and you’re still being an idiot.” Zeff says in a voice that’s edging more towards his usual affectionate despair about anything that Sanji does. 

“What?” he blinks looking up at the old man. 

“You. You’re being stupid again. Just like you always are with girls, you act like a wet noodle around them; and you’re doing it about this boy too.” Zeff accuses, pointing his dessert spoon at Sanji like a weapon.

“I- I’m not!” Sanji denies, his cheeks heating. And, okay, just because he does like Zoro doesn’t mean that he wants his old man teasing him about it!

Zeff makes a dismissive noise through his moustache, leaving Sanji to his burning cheeks and his dessert. 

They finish their dessert quietly but as Sanji goes to put his bowl in the sink a sense of light-headedness comes over him, he feels as if he might faint. His, or rather Zoro’s, legs stumble under him and he just manages to catch himself on the lip of the sink with his palm. 

“I guess there’s only so long that I can do this for.” He says weakly as Zoro’s legs fold uncooperatively under him. He tries to force himself to stand but Zoro’s body is having none of it. Zeff is at his side right away, his face a picture of concern and questioning. 

An idea occurs forcefully in Sanji’s mind and he grabs Zeff urgently by the sleeve. He looks up into Zeff’s old eyes and tries to force all of the urgency that he can into his voice, he needs Zeff to understand how important this is.

“Promise me that you’ll take care of Zoro, he needs a family, Zeff. He needs the Baratie, just like I needed it, just like you needed it.” He pleads, clutching the old man’s arm. Zeff stares at him wide eyed but nods sharply all the same. 

Zoro’s body shudders around him and for a second he feels unattached from it, as if it’s slipping from him. He’s being forced out of Zoro’s body in the same way that an infection might be. He snaps back into place but when he does he can’t feel anything below his- Zoro’s, waist. 

He rests his head against Zeff’s collarbone, against the chef’s whites that he’s always associated with the man. Zeff has his arm around him, as always seeming to understand him without needing telling or needing words to express that understanding. They’ve never been big on words but perhaps now of all times they need them. 

“I- I love you old man. You’re a father to me. Th…thank you.” He manages as his throat chokes up with emotion. He needs to tell Zeff this, he needs to say it.

Zeff says nothing for a second until Sanji hears him sniff quietly. 

“My boy.” Zeff says simply, holding the back of Sanji’s head with a shaking hand. And that’s all he needs to say.

Zoro’s eyes fill with tears and Sanji finds it an immense relief to finally be able to cry. He sobs into Zeff’s chef’s clothes and cries in gratitude and love, in love and loss. 

Zeff’s chin touches the crown of Sanji’s head and Sanji feels a single warm, wet tear slide down his neck.

Zoro’s body judders again, like a car engine starting and then Sanji feels nothing. He’s floating in the air behind Zoro’s body, which is lying limp on the floor and in Zeff’s arms. 

He feels nothing, just coldness and emptiness. His gaze though is drawn to something that wasn’t there before, Zoro. Or rather… a sort of see-through version of Zoro. It’s Zoro’s… ghost. Zoro is staring down at his body with an expression that Sanji can’t read, something between confusion and horror.

Panic clutches at his soul, surely he’s not killed Zoro has he? 

“Zoro!” Sanji yelps, reaching up and grabbing Zoro’s hand. He actually makes contact this time and Zoro feels as solid as the world had when he was alive. Zoro startles and looks down from where he hovers in the air to Sanji.

“You-!” Zoro starts, his eyes wide as he reaches suddenly for Sanji. But whatever it was that he was going to say and whatever it was he was going to do Sanji will never know. Zoro suddenly blurs to the left, as if he was painted and smeared by an artist’s hand, and all that makes up Zoro snaps back into his body. Zoro’s unconscious form seems to gasp slightly and then relax. 

Zeff strokes a hand through Zoro’s hair after a moment and looks down worriedly at the unconscious young man before carefully picking him up and carrying him upstairs, leaving a shell-shocked Sanji to follow.


	10. Chapter 10

Sanji waits quietly for Zoro to wake up, there’s no one else that he can talk to after all. The green head is curled up under the blanket that Sanji used to sleep under, in the bed that Sanji used to sleep in and in the room that he had called his own before he’d died. 

His old man had put him there and is now sitting in the corner watching Zoro carefully as the young man sleeps. Zoro’s breathing is easy and steady, it’s almost hypnotic to Sanji. He’s sitting intangibly on Zoro’s shins like some kind of ghostly guard dog.

The psychic looks small under the covers, he looks tired and wrung out. There are dark circles under his eyes despite sleeping for the entire night without so much as stirring. Sanji can’t help but wonder if his possession of Zoro had drained more energy out of the man, just like Usopp had. He hopes not, that can’t be good for him. Still, it was that or let the moron get shot, so Sanji doesn’t regret his choice. And he got to have a proper goodbye with Zeff, he can’t regret that either.

Sanji’s mind churns in the half light of the morning as he watches Zoro continue to sleep. He had seen Zoro last night, when he had come out of Zoro’s body he’d seen him floating there as clear as day. Why had Zoro been out of his body? Sanji is fairly certain that he’d not killed Zoro, however briefly, his ejection from Zoro’s form had felt more like a rejection from some metaphysical immune system rather than Zoro’s body dying on him. So why had Zoro been there? The other guy that Sanji had possessed hadn’t been floating around. He’d have to ask Zoro about it. 

Sanji can hear the familiar ungraceful boot thumps up the stairs that he’s associated with Patty and Carne since the awful duo first came to work for the Baratie, a restaurant that might as well have advertised itself as being both an eating establishment and a workplace for lost souls. Hm, funny that, the Baratie helped lost souls find their place, figuratively speaking, and Zoro helped them do so literally. He knows that Zeff will keep his promise and let Zoro stay, he just wonders if the marimo will accept the help. 

The bootsteps hesitate outside the door, clearly their owners have deduced that Zeff must be in here and they don’t know what to do. Zeff’s eyes are open and curious in that shifty way that only the old geezer can manage, they’re both wondering what the two will do. 

It occurs to Sanji that Zeff looks almost… normal. Not that he knows what he was expecting, in a selfish way he’d almost expected everything that was part of his living life to have stopped when he died. Sanji isn’t sure whether he wants to speculate what Zeff has been like after his death. How did the old man grieve him? Sanji already knows that Zeff continued his work with food donation, something that touched him deeply, but other than that he knows nothing. He doesn’t know if Zeff was sad or angry, he doesn’t know if the man cried or became distant, he knows nothing.

Finally Patty seems to get the stones to knock on the door and pokes his head around it into the room, he seems to take in Zeff first before his eyes stop on Zoro, causing his face to rearrange into a scowl.

"Who the hell is this?!" he demands loudly gesturing at the sleeping Zoro.

"That’s Zoro. He's helping prove that Sanji didn't kill himself." Zeff answers in a disinterested monotone.

“How’s he doing that?” Patty asks, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

“Never you mind, idiot. What do you want anyway?” The old man replies gruffly.

“What, is he like a detective or something? How old is he anyway, like, fifteen?” Patty snorts derisively. 

“Hey, why’s that kid in Sanji’s bed?” Carne asks, apparently choosing this moment to also poke his head around the door and peer in at Zoro. Sanji rolls his eyes, the two of them are hopeless and always so loud and annoying. …he misses them. God, there has to be something wrong with him but he actually misses the two blockheads. That is until Carne says what’s probably the worst thing possible.

“Are you just replacing Sanji with some other guy?” Carne asks with a faint tone of accusation in his voice. 

Sanji winces at that. He knows that it’s not the case at all, and that Carne is probably just speaking from a place of hurt himself, after all he lost Sanji too. But it’s almost certainly the most hurtful thing that he could have said. Zeff’s body is rigid with rage and Sanji is suddenly glad that he’s intangible and can’t suffer from the pain of that kick that he can see building. 

Evidently Carne has enough sense to see it too and leaps backwards, dragging Patty with him. Zeff’s false leg slams into the door hard that it rattles the hinges it sits in. There’s even an impression of his shoe in the wood.

“Uh… so… do you want us to open up since you’re uh… busy up here?” Patty’s hesitant voice calls through the safety of the door. Zeff snarls angrily in response and Sanji hears the morons scuttle away. 

Zeff turns back to face Sanji and his face suddenly shows surprise, it’s then that Sanji realises that Zoro’s legs have moved out from underneath him. He turns to look as sees that the green haired psychic is doing his best to plaster himself to the corner of the wall at the head of Sanji’s bed, the farthest in the room that he can get away from Zeff. He’s gone shockingly pale and his expression is one of mortal dread. 

Oh god, Zoro doesn’t have any memory of when Sanji was in his body. The guy that he possessed in the car didn’t remember so why would Zoro? And the last thing that Zoro remembers about Zeff is Zeff pointing a shotgun in his face and now he’s woken up in some strange bed, of course he’s freaked out. 

“Zoro! Zoro, it’s okay!” Sanji blurts out hurriedly to his friend. Zoro’s dark scared eyes flick from Zeff to him and back again.

“Easy kid. Sanji told me everything.” Zeff says calmly, holding his empty hands up as a peace gesture. Zoro’s brow furrows dangerously and his gaze snaps quickly to Sanji.

“I might have… borrowed your body. You were going to get shot, I had to do something!” He says in his defence. Zoro glowers at him but relaxes enough so he’s no longer in danger of fusing with the wallpaper. 

Zoro slides back down so he’s only sitting up in the bed and Zeff sits back down in his chair with an elderly grunt that worries Sanji a little inside. The two men sit looking at each other in silence. Great. Sanji should have known that this would happen, neither Zoro or Zeff were especially big on initiating conversation unless it involved pissing Sanji off, so left together they clearly were just going to sit quietly.

“Well, someone say something!” He says exasperatedly. 

Zoro’s eyes flick to him with a hint of agitation, but clearly Zoro isn’t going to tell him off with Zeff sitting right there. Even if the old man does know the truth it’d sound a little weird for Zoro to be effectively talking to himself. 

“He’s here isn’t he?” Zeff asks suddenly, clearly having caught the direction that Zoro’s gaze was going in. Zoro straightens up at that and his face takes on an almost embarrassed expression, as if Zeff had caught him doing something naughty. Sanji suspects that Zoro does think of his powers in the way – as something bad. 

“I- uh… yeah.” Zoro answers uncomfortably, glancing down uneasily and pulling at the sleeve of his hooded top. 

“I suspected as much. I guess this sort of thing is your main deal with seeing ghosts huh? Putting people back in contact with their families.” Zeff muses, stroking his plaited moustache. Mutely Zoro shakes his head and fiddles with his sleeve again.

“No, people don’t believe me. Or they get angry and try to shoot me.” Zoro mumbles and chews on his sleeve. Sanji gawks at Zoro, it’s as if the slightly awkward but funny guy that he knows has just disappeared to be replaced with this unbelievably anxious socially stunted guy. He supposes that any conversation that Zoro doesn’t have planned or isn’t with someone he knows fairly well is uncomfortable for him. It certainly explains how all of Zoro’s clothes seem to be frayed, he must worry at them when he’s nervous. His wasn’t this bad last time he saw Zeff, although he was a bit weird. But perhaps Zoro felt like he had a little more control in that conversation.

An idea of Zoro’s life flashes through his mind, Zoro being already isolated with his unusual and terrifying gift, a gift that Zoro has insisted creeps people out around him. And when you consider that the few people that Zoro has let past his defences have met untimely ends it reveals upsetting things about his life. The only people Zoro can seemingly be his normal self around are dead. It seems so out of character for Zoro but… perhaps the way that Zoro behaves around him is technically against his usual character. 

“Yeah, sorry for trying to shoot you.” The old man apologises after a moment. 

“I’m used to it. The last lady I passed a message onto threw a phone at my head.” Zoro shrugs and gestures to the almost healed gash on his temple where Kaya’s big heavy phone connected with Zoro’s face. 

“Then… how do you earn a living if no one believes you?” Zeff asks looking at Zoro with some surprise.

“I work nights at a convenience store.” Zoro shrugs, his tone conveying the disinterest that he has for the job and the people that he works with.

“It must be hard finding a job where you can just run off to investigate people’s deaths all by yourself. Especially if it involves breaking and entering.” Zeff muses, giving Zoro a slightly sharp look. Zoro awkwardly looks away and silence falls over the two again.

“Did… did you have that bottle of Sanji’s? It seems to have vanished and-” Zoro begins with a little more certainty.

“And it could be motive, I know. Sanji told me. You really don’t remember any of it do you?” Zeff asks interestedly. Zoro shakes his head mutely at that.

“Well, no. I don’t have it. If the police had given it to me I would have kept it, but they didn’t.” the old man answers. 

“That’s because the police didn’t get it either. So whoever killed him took it before he died.” Zoro states firmly before swinging his legs out of bed. He finds his shoes on the floor and starts putting them on. From this angle Sanji can see that Zoro’s shitty converses even have holes in the soles. 

“So what are you doing to do now? What can I do?” Zeff asks insistently, his eyes wide with purpose. 

Zoro looks up at the old man with a slightly startled expression, of course no one’s probably offered to help him before, not if Zoro meant it when he said that no one had ever believed him before. But Zeff does believe him, and now that Zeff knows that Sanji isn’t playing some golden harp and flirting with angels he clearly feels that he needs to help. And he doesn’t even know the worst of what could happen to him if Zoro doesn’t help him in time, he doesn’t know about the decay. Zoro seems to get this though and relaxes a little.

“I’m going to go and stake out Creuset’s house, it’s a lot easier when one half of your team is invisible. I don’t need you to do anything right now, if I do I’ll let you know.” Zoro states. And Sanji sees a glimmer of the man that Zoro is supposed to be, quick witted and confident, strong and kind. Zoro isn’t supposed to be the anxious, awkward worrier that this life has made him into, but Sanji can see the real him under there and he wants to see more of it. 

Zeff watches as Zoro shrugs into his hoodie and gets ready to leave, he gives him a slow considering look, the kind that Sanji knows from experience means that he’s thinking deeply about something.

“Kid, if you need a job… somewhere that’ll understand if you need to run off to do what you do, then let me know.” Zeff says suddenly, startling Zoro who’s halfway through the door already. Zoro looks at the old man with a surprised look on his face which eventually settles into a small scowl.

“Sanji put you up to that didn’t he?” the green head says suspiciously. 

“Does it matter?” Zeff asks challengingly. 

The two stare each other down for a while, neither saying anything nor making any move. Sanji doesn’t even dare say anything himself either, he wants Zoro to accept the offer, he wants Zoro to be somewhere safe. 

Instead the marimo huffs in irritation and turns his back on the old man.

“I have a murderer to catch.” He says and lets himself out of the door, down the stairs and out the back door without so much as acknowledging Patty and Carne as he breezes by them. Sanji guesses that spending a lifetime being ignored gets you pretty good at pretending that people aren’t there.

Sanji scowls at Zoro as he floats along behind him in the alleyway.

“You’re kind of an asshole you know? Zeff doesn’t exactly make offers like that regularly.” He snaps at him. 

Zoro freezes in his tracks and spins around to Sanji, his face a picture of fury.

“I’m the asshole? You took over my body without my permission and used it, clearly enough to make me pass out if the way I feel is anything to go by. Then you let me wake up somewhere strange without so much as a word of warning that the guy who just levelled a shotgun at me isn’t trying to kill me anymore! And on top of that you’ve clearly talked me up as some charity case to your old man to get him to offer me help like some stray dog! And I’m the asshole here?!” Zoro snarls at him, making Sanji recoil.

“You were going to get your face shot off! I had to do something!” He argues back defensively. 

“I managed perfectly fine before you came along you know!” Zoro retorts.

“It SHOWS!” Sanji shouts at him. It turns out to be one of those moments where you hear the words tumbling out of your mouth and wish instantly that you could yank them back in because Zoro’s face instantly flashes hurts before the defensive walls slam down over his expression.

“I didn’t mean that.” He blurts out too late.

Zoro turns on his heel and strides off out of the alley and into the street with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders held tensely. Sanji flies after him guiltily. 

“I just… I know that you’re going to find out who did this to me. And I don’t like the thought that when I go… wherever it is that we go, that you’re gonna be all alone. I was just trying to pay you back for helping me.” Sanji explains but Zoro is ignoring him, either that or he’s not talking because they’re in public now, he has a feeling that the people around aren’t making any difference though.

He follows Zoro in silence until they come to Creuset’s house. It’s set in some fairly large grounds, not so much as Kaya's was but it certainly shows of the cook's wealth. It also gives Zoro somewhere to hide. The skinny guy shimmies along a branch and lies down with a pair of binoculars and peers into the house.

"It doesn't look like he's in." Zoro states, speaking for the first time since their argument. 

"It's not like he could see me if he was." Sanji points out.

"Either way, go in and see if you can find your bottle." Zoro shrugs and goes back to looking at the house.

Sanji hesitates, if he leaves now then he may never see Zoro again, it wasn't like Usopp got a lot of warning before he became a glowing gold ball of light.

"I wanted to say sorry, if I was an asshole to you before, or ever really. I really regret being dead and not getting a chance to meet you properly." Sanji apologises, rubbing the back of his ghostly neck uncomfortably. Zoro gives him an irritated little look at that last bit.

"We're never going to agree on that last bit. But you're ok for a curly browed dead guy." Zoro grins at him. Sanji sticks his tongue out at the psychic and almost leaves before something else occurs to him, something that Robin said that he's never had the guts to bring up.

"Zoro, why were you on that ledge? You didn't see me until I called out to you, so you weren't there for me." Sanji asks quietly. Zoro looks away uncomfortably, he won't meet Sanji's eyes.

"Does it matter? Don't you have an afterlife to be going on to?" He says evasively.

"Not if I think you're going to be following me right away." Sanji answers coldly. That gets a reaction out of Zoro, the man tenses and sits up, he's still unable to meet Sanji's eyes though.

"It's not really any of your business." Zoro mutters.

"I'm not leaving until I get an answer Zoro." he states flatly, folding his arms.

"I don't- look, my life has never been great. But... I'd always felt like there was some...thing that I was searching for, something worth it. But the last month or so it's as if that light went out of the world and there wasn't a place for me here anymore. I can't really explain it." Zoro answers, staring off emotionlessly into space.

"But you can't! You could do so much with your life, I know you're alone right now but there are gonna be other people out there that'll like you! Zeff meant it when he offered you a job! Or, you could find someone else like you, someone who understands the whole 'seeing dead people' thing!" Sanji insists desperately.

"It's not your life." Zoro answers flatly finally looking Sanji in the eyes and giving him a hard look.

"No, mine was taken from me and I'd do anything to have it back. Don't throw yours away." he pleads.

"Sanji-" Zoro starts with a sigh but Sanji cuts him off.

"I'm not leaving until you promise me that you won't kill yourself! Even if I have to stay here and rot!" He shouts at the green head. Zoro looks startled at that but he doesn't dismiss Sanji or tell him that he doesn't know what he's saying, he has that much respect for Sanji at least. He floats up so that he's level with Zoro and leans over, touching the man's jaw with his hand.

"I care if you're alive, you moss brained idiot. I promise that if you stay alive I'll come back and tell you what the other side is like." he promises quietly.

"Fine." Zoro mumbles unhappily. He's a man of his word and he knows that Zoro will uphold that promise no matter what.

He leans forward and finally gives into his temptation to kiss Zoro, he presses his lips to Zoro and... feels him. There's no other way of explaining it, in the same way that he could feel Zoro's body like his own when he possessed him he can feel Zoro's... soul. It feels vast and deep like an ocean but Sanji feels familiar with it, as if he's walked its shores many times before. He can feel the man's sense of honour, of right and wrong, he can feel his tendency to unwavering loyalty and devotion. He feels that the surface of Zoro is new but the deeper waters are the same as ever, like the changing weather over the same ocean. Most of all though he feels the pang of loss from what he should have had and can't now because he's dead.

He opens his eyes slowly and pulls back, he swears that he sees a flicker of red in his vision but it might just be Zoro's reddened cheeks. The other man's eyes are slightly misty and he looks at Sanji with a look of such loss and mourning that it burns Sanji to the core.

"I think," he says shakily, "you might have been right. I think we were supposed to be... I think we were meant to..." Zoro trails off and rapidly blinks the moisture out of his eyes. Zoro sniffs sharply and looks away, making Sanji smile fondly, stupid proud marimo.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asks gruffly, covering for his emotional overflow.

"See you later." Sanji smiles and flies off to Creuset's house, trying to ignore the feeling that he's leaving something unspeakably important behind.

 

It seems like Zoro was right, Creuset doesn't appear to be home. Sanji wanders around his house aimlessly looking for his bottle but not seeing it anywhere. That said he can't really look in cupboards. It's pitch black when he sticks his head through them and he doesn't want to go opening things in case he's interrupted. On the doormat there's mail for Creuset, a few things that looks like bills and something that's marked as being from "Vegapunk Chemical Laboratories".

It's just as he's leaning over to inspect that letter that the front door swings open, swinging through him and bringing Creuset striding into his home followed by a pretty blonde woman that he recognises from Zoro's files as being Creuset's agent.

"It's here!" Creuset exclaims and snatches the letter up, hurriedly running off with it to the large well equipped kitchen.

"What's here?" the agent asks with a puzzled expression on her face.

"The analysis, now we'll have proof." Creuset says dismissively and opens a cupboard and pulls something out. He turns and places it on the counter next to the envelope. 

It's his black bottle.

And he remembers.

_He is still fuming from his argument with Zeff, he had stomped Creuset tonight, wasn't he allowed to enjoy himself a little? God, he needs a smoke to calm his nerves, he probably was little too sharp with the old geezer, he'd smoke and calm down a little then say sorry. He shoves the sash window up and leans out of it, he should really go down to the ground floor and smoke - there are signs all around the building saying not to inside - but it's freezing out there and they're on the millionth floor or something. He rolls himself a smoke with quick practiced movements and lights it with the lighter in his pocket. He replaces the lighter and leans out of the window._

_"How do you taste a fucking thing doing that?" A dark voice questions behind him. He startles a little but turns around to look, it's Creuset, he's standing with his fists balled angrily at his sides._

_"Oh this?" Sanji asks holding up the cigarette. The angry flash in his ex-competitor's eyes tells him all that he needs to. Zeff told him before that smoking would ruin his sense of taste, clearly this guy believes it too._

_"Clearly I manage well enough." He shrugs with a grin._

_Creuset is practically shaking with rage, he must be really torn up at losing to him. Sanji shifts and sits on the windowsill fully, the crown of his head resting on the upper half of the opened window._

" _You've no goddamned respect you punk kid." Creuset growls._

_"Get over it man, I won. If you want you title back then go up against me next year, fair's fair." Sanji frowns with irritation._

_"It's not fair though, you cheated, I saw you!" Creuset snaps, his eyes blazing fiercely. Sanji straightens angrily at that, the guy can be as bitter as he likes but he's no cheat!_

_"I don't know what you think you saw you shitty bastard, but I never needed to cheat to beat some old washed out "star" like you." he snaps angrily._

_"We'll see about that, I've got proof now you fool!" Creuset shouts wildly and snatches Sanji's bottle of herbs off of the windowsill and clutches it manically to his chest._

_"Oi! Give that back!" He exclaims trying to get his bottle back from the crazy cook._

_"Ah-hah! Not so cocky now are we? What did you put in here to win then? Some kind of drug?" Creuset laughs shoving Sanji backwards hard enough for his thighs to hit the windowsill and his head to painfully bump the edge of the raised window._

_"What helped me win is something you can't bottle, talent." Sanji growls angrily._

_Something unhinged and crazy flares in Creuset's eyes and some part of Sanji's brain senses danger from the other cook for the first time. He senses that the cook isn't just some paranoid has-been but is genuinely unhinged and dangerous. Before he can react though Creuset's open hand slams into his chest, hurling him backwards through the open window without so much as time to grab the edges of the frame._

_He turns catlike in the air, fear and adrenaline coursing through his veins as he hopes to land on his feet but he's traveling fast, much too fast. He's not able to get his legs under him in time and instead he lands hands first, the pain as his wrists and all the bones in his hands shatter is both mental and physical. The first thought is that if he ever survives this he'll never cook again, and in slow motion as his broken arms crumple under him he realises that he won't survive this at all._

Sanji jolts back to the present in horror and looks at the last face that he ever saw as Creuset excitedly tears open the envelope. Creuset's little piggy eyes narrow as he reads the letter, his face contorts with that unhinged rage again and Sanji spots his agent flinch back from him, she's scared of Creuset too.

"It's just goddamn herbs!" Creuset snarls, slamming his fist with the scrunched up letter in it on the surface so hard that the bottle jumps and falls over.

"You- you can't keep that here Creuset! What if the police were to-" His agent insists timidly as she eyes the bottle and the chemical results.

"They wouldn't do anything! It's not proof of anything! Anyway, I have an alibi don't I?!" he snarls at her.

"Of course you do but, it's just..." She whimpers recoiling from the mad cook.

Sanji stares at his murderer, invisible and powerless to speak to him. And as much as it pains him to admit it, Creuset is right. The bottle is circumstantial evidence at best, this bastard killed him and he's going to get away with it! A cold hard feeling settles inside him, not anger or rage, something colder and darker than that. He refuses to let this happen to him, he refuses to let Creuset go unpunished for what he's done, he refuses to allow justice to go unserved. Zoro's gentle understanding voice runs through his mind, his earnest dark eyes looking up at him and asking Sanji why he's still clinging onto this world. Now he knows.

He turns and strides through the walls of Creuset's house, out across the grounds and towards where he left Zoro. The green haired guy's face is buried in his arms, he's curled up on the tree branch like a kid sitting up in bed after a nightmare.

"Zoro." he calls up to him. The marimo jumps and looks down at Sanji in surprise with red rimmed eyes. Sanji realises then that Zoro hadn't expected to ever see him again, he'd expected him to move on and never see him again.

"You... You're back." Zoro says dumbly.

"Not from the other side though." Sanji answers Zoro's unspoken question.

"I've got my memory back, Creuset did it. He murdered me, he's completely insane, you were right though - he did think that I'd cheated." he says harshly, remembering his terrified fall.

"I need justice Zoro! He killed me and he's going to get away with it! But we’ve got no proof, nothing that the police can use!" he yells furiously, kicking the tree trunk in his rage.

"I have an idea about that." Zoro smiles down at him as the disturbed leaves drift down around him from the tree branches.


	11. Chapter 11

Sanji has never been one of those guys that finds mysterious sexy. It just doesn’t do it for him, so he doesn’t appreciate Zoro’s cheeky cunning smile and hush hush nature, he just wants to know what the damn plan is. Halfway down the road away from Creuset’s house Zoro pulls out his phone and makes a call. 

“Oh, hi boss. It’s Zoro…. Yeah. I ah… I won’t be able to *cough* come into work this week.” Zoro says into the phone in a strained gravelly voice that he mostly manages by pressing his knuckles into his throat as he talks.

Zoro waves at him and tries to pull him closer, reaching for his hand. Perplexed Sanji holds his hand out and Zoro walks forward into it so that his hand is inside Zoro’s chest. Zoro uses the opportunity to let out a cough or two that Sanji swears has a death rattle in it and he realises that he can feel Zoro’s lungs shuddering to get away from his touch. Creeped out he snatches his hand back and Zoro grins and mouths thank you at him.

“Yeah, I don’t know what with but it’s pretty bad. I… yeah I’ll call you at the end of the week and let you *cough* let you know.” Zoro finishes and hangs up after a moment. 

The marimo shoves his phone in his pocket and gives him a conspiratorial look before strolling off.

“O-oi! You’re not sick, what’s going on?” Sanji demands as he runs after Zoro. He hopes that the marimo isn’t sick anyway, he’s pretty sure that he’s not but Zoro isn’t exactly the communicative type.

“No, but I’m going to be.” Zoro shrugs slightly. 

“You… what?” Sanji frowns feeling confused, but Zoro says no more on the topic. 

When they get back to Zoro’s place the marimo shuts the door behind him and grins at Sanji. He’s still pissed off with the moss brain, even if he does have an attractive grin.

“What’s this big plan then?” Sanji asks with a glower and his hands on his hips.

“Did you ever read the tell tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe?” Zoro asks with a smile. 

“What? No. I asked you a question dumbass, don’t just respond with a completely different question.” He frowns at the crazy psychic.

“It’s one of my favourites, come on. I’ll read it to you.” Zoro declares enthusiastically and marches off to the living room trailing the perplexed Sanji with him.

“I’m asking you how to prove Creuset guilty, idiot. I’m not asking for an English Literature lesson!” he snaps but Zoro grabs the book and sits down on the sofa anyway. The book is old and well worn, clearly Zoro has spent hours pouring over the volume of Poe’s collected stories. He flicks open to the right page, apparently by memory and begins to read, ignoring Sanji’s protests.

The story is strange, it’s told from the perspective of a madman with apparently superhuman hearing. He plots to kill an old man that he lived with because he didn’t like his eye or something. The guy is nuts. But he keeps going on and on about how he can hear the man’s heart, like a pocket watch wrapped in cotton. 

In the story he’d killed the guy and then even been so brazen as to invite the police in when they came knocking. He didn’t really like the story, he guesses that being a murder victim kind of dampens your passion for stories about murder. The police are even sitting above the man’s body on chairs at this point and the murderer can still hear the beating of his dead victim’s heart. But Zoro’s voice is deep and smooth as he reads and Sanji kind of likes the sound of it so he sits and listens as Zoro continues. 

“No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone?” Zoro narrates in his well practiced voice. 

“I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!” Zoro continues. The guy was completely nuts, was he going mad with guilt? 

“And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- no, no? They heard! -- they suspected! -- they KNEW! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! -- this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! – "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"” Zoro finishes smoothly and snaps the book shut.

Sanji blinks a few times as Zoro gives him this big expectant smile as if expecting him to get it. In all honesty Sanji doesn’t get it much, he was never that good at literature in school, it just wasn’t what he was interested in. But still, he doesn’t want to appear stupid in front of Zoro. What was the point of the story? Well, clearly it was about a murderer coming to justice, but it was his own madness that drove him there. How did that help him?

“I don’t see how this helps me.” He admits unhappily, if Zoro thinks him stupid for that then there’s nothing that he can do about that.

“And you say I’m dumb. The murderer in this story didn’t leave any evidence that the police were likely to find, they only found the body because he showed it to them. Sound like the murder of anyone else you know?” Zoro points out, replacing the book in the shelf with care.

“Well, mine obviously. But they found my body and thought that I killed myself.” Sanji frowns up at Zoro, he really doesn’t see how this is helpful. 

“The murderer confessed because he could hear the heart. We need Creuset to confess obviously, no other evidence will do.” Zoro points out, as he turns back to Sanji with an impatient huff.

“Well, forgive my pessimism, but Creuset didn’t exactly seem consumed with guilt when I last saw him. Definitely not to the extent that he’s going to start hallucinating my beating heart.” Sanji grumbles, it’s as if taking his life didn’t even matter to the other cook. 

“Which is why you need to be your own tell tale heart. Or have you forgotten that you’re a poltergeist?” Zoro grins at him and touches Sanji’s jaw. Sanji leans his head into Zoro’s touch and feels the man’s fingers move under the pressure. 

“I don’t want to drive him into a madhouse though, I want him to go to jail.” He replies dubiously. 

“You leave that to me.” Zoro smiles mysteriously. 

“Now get to Creuset’s house and get haunting dart-brow. I’ve got work to do here.” Zoro says sticking out his tongue and shooing Sanji off. 

Sanji arrives back at Creuset’s house and watches the man who murdered him. He’s sitting on the sofa, watching TV and drinking a beer. Bastard. He stalks around and tries to come up with things to do, he’s not really sure how to haunt someone, he never watched many horror movies. He supposes it’s all about things happening that you can’t explain. 

He wanders around to the back of the TV and pulls the plug out, cutting the power to the TV. Creuset frowns and presses the buttons on the remote uselessly, with a grumble he gets up and presses the buttons on the TV with no effect. After a few moments he realises that the power cable is out and plugs it back in again with a confused expression. Sanji waits until the murderous bastard is sat down again before repeating himself. He only manages a few rounds of that before Creuset gets bored and wanders off, leaving his TV unplugged. So much for that.

Sanji isn’t sure so much that he’s haunting Creuset as he is just irritating him. He’s not really any good at this whole haunting business. He starts turning off lights but again that just seems to irritate Creuset and if what he says is anything to go by he keeps putting it down to power surges. Creuset goes into his bathroom to take a leak and Sanji gets an idea. He slides into Creuset’s body and possesses him. He ignores the beating of Creuset’s gross heart and his full bladder and instead snags the soap from the sink and writes his name in soap on the mirror. He washes the soap off of Creuset’s hands and dries them before giving the bastard his body back. 

Creuset stumbles light headedly and rubs his head as he stops himself from falling to the floor. He glances around the room and Sanji grins in satisfaction as he sees Creuset spot the mirror and pale rapidly. With a horrified gasp he leaps forward and washes the mirror clean and leaves the room quickly with shaky hands. Sanji smirks, this could be fun.

Over the next few days he tortures Creuset more and more, he moves things in his house and keeps moving his bottle into the middle of the kitchen counter whenever Creuset isn’t looking. He writes his name over and over again on mirrors by possessing the other cook. He flings open windows whenever Creuset passes, so much so that the man nails all of the windows in his house shut. He’s jittery and scared but he doesn’t seem inclined to go to the cops. He likes seeing Creuset suffer though.

What Sanji doesn’t like is seeing what his activities are doing to Zoro. The marimo was right to call in sick to work. Sanji’s powers cost energy and the only place that energy comes from is Zoro, whenever he returns Zoro almost passes out and spends the rest of the day looking pale and worn out. He tried to stay away from Zoro but he faded out of existence and snapped back to Zoro, just like how he used to snap back to the window ledge if he tried to jump when he was stuck on the building.

He snaps back to Zoro after a particularly gruelling time, he expended all the energy that he had by throwing his bottle at Creuset’s face, the cook’s scream had been particularly pleasing. He’s startled to see that Zoro isn’t at his flat but is instead at Sanji’s home. Zoro’s eyes roll back in his head and he drops like a puppet with its strings cut. Zeff yelps and catches Zoro before he crashes to the floor. 

The old geezer cradles Zoro’s head and touches his palm to Zoro’s cold, clammy forehead. The marimo’s skin is almost grey in colour and his breathing is shallow and troubled.

“God, what are you doing to him Sanji?” Zeff mutters, picking up the psychic and carrying him to Sanji’s old room. 

“You must be here right? Zoro said that it’s only like this when you come back, so you must be here.” Zeff says quietly as he pulls Sanji’s blanket over Zoro’s form. Zeff straightens and looks around the room, looking through Sanji but never at him. 

“You can’t keep doing this to him. Tomorrow night is all we have left, that’s when we’ll get to see if this works. I can’t believe that I’ll have to talk to a goddamn journalist. Only for you eggplant.” Zeff shudders as if the word pains him to say. 

“What’s happening tomorrow night?” Sanji asks with a frown but of course Zeff doesn’t answer him. His old man leaves the room, leaving him with just the sleeping Zoro. 

“What’re you up to?” He frowns at the marimo.

 

He waits a long time for Zoro to wake up, long enough for the sun to set and the moon to come out, but eventually the man stirs. Zeff had come up in the meantime and left a hot meal for Zoro which is now more room temperature than it is hot. 

“What’s happening tomorrow night?” He questions, giving Zoro a stern look. Zoro looks shifty and slightly guilty at that question, as if Sanji has caught him at something naughty.

“I didn’t want to bring it up too soon, I didn’t want to get your hopes up. How is haunting Creuset going?” Zoro asks, his expression weak.

“It’s fine, now answer me you bastard.” Sanji demands, flying up and landing across Zoro, his knees on either side of Zoro’s hips.

“The TV station that Usopp worked for and that filmed your contest has been calling Zeff constantly. They want an interview with him about you, about your life, how tragic your death was.” Zoro sighs weakly, his head lolling back and exposing his throat.

“Zeff would never agree to that, except… except I heard him say something about journalists. He’s not agreed has he?” Sanji balks. Surely Zeff wouldn’t agree to? It’s too cheap, too tawdry, too disrespectful of his death.

“I talked him into it, I need cameras recording it. And our friend Creuset is going to be there too, giving his side of the story.” Zoro grins, apparently having enough energy to muster to waggle his eyebrows at Sanji. 

Sanji slides off of Zoro’s lap in shock and lands on the floor. He gets Zoro’s meaning, he plans to have Creuset confess on camera, where he couldn’t deny it and the evidence would be solid. In front of a recording studio full of witnesses no less. Smoker had told Zoro that nothing less than a confession would do but really, Zoro couldn’t hand the police officer a better confession unless he stuck a goddamn bow on it. He understands now why Zoro has been getting him to traumatise Creuset so much now, he needs him in as fragile state of mind in front of the cameras as possible. 

Zoro has recovered somewhat and is sipping at the hearty soup that Zeff prepared for him, it’s bringing some colour back into his cheeks thankfully. 

“You think it’ll work? You think he’ll confess?” he asks hopefully. 

“I made you a promise didn’t I?” Zoro says simply and knocks back the last of his soup. 

 

Zoro sleeps in Sanji’s bed that night and the next day around lunchtime he drives to the studio with Zeff in the van that has Sanji’s face on the side. Zoro recommended it because that way when Creuset gets there he’ll see Sanji’s face all over again. 

Zoro and Zeff are sitting in a VIP room, Zoro is sitting in the corner with his laptop on his crossed legs and typing furiously as he chews on a sugar loaded candy bar. He’s been eating the things all morning, chocolate, candy and even energy drinks. The man is practically vibrating but he keeps feeding himself the same stuff. His teeth will fall out of his head before Sanji leaves this world at the rate he’s going. 

“I hate this, it’s so wrong.” Zeff grouses at the vanity table. He stares at his face, the staff had put make up on him to make him show up better under the lights and Sanji can tell right now that he hates it.

“It’ll be worth it.” Zoro answers absently and clicks on the keyboard a little more. He gives a triumphant little laugh, clicks a few more times and then shuts the laptop. 

“What were you working on there anyway?” Zeff asks with curiosity. 

“Just a little video surprise, something that might push Creuset over the edge. Just in case what Sanji does doesn’t do the trick.” Zoro replies with a secretive smile. 

“Now, remember-” Zoro starts.

“Yes! I know what I have to talk about, I might be old but I’m not senile broccoli-head!” Zeff snaps making Sanji snigger. 

“Fine, go on then Sanji. Ruin Creuset’s day.” Zoro nods and leans back against the wall to sleep, although how he can do so with all that sugar in his veins Sanji has no idea.

Nevertheless Sanji flies down the TV studio hallway to where he knows Creuset’s VIP room is and slides through the wall. His agent has her head around the door nervously.

“You need to calm down Creuset, you’ve been so nervous this week. What’s wrong?” She asks timidly.

“NOTHING IS WRONG!” Creuset bellows frightening the tiny woman out of the room. 

The fire of rage inside of Sanji burns brighter, not only is Creuset a murderer but he’s viciously verbally abusive to his female agent. Sanji has never tolerated that kind of thing and even over his cold dead body he still refuses to. 

He focuses his anger into a fine point and directs it at the mirror that sits in front of Creuset, in one slow movement the thing cracks horizontally, decapitating his reflection and sending it crashing to the floor. Creuset yells in fear and leaps back. 

Zoro had told Sanji to go all out on this last attack, to use up all the energy that he wanted and push Creuset as far as he could. 

He knocks over the makeup on the vanity and drags his finger through it, writing the word “confess” across the vanity top. Creuset’s breathing is ragged and unhinged now but he violently swipes his hand through the makeup, erasing Sanji’s message. 

“It’s all in your head.” He repeats to himself over and over again. Gritting his teeth Sanji blows the light above him and vanishes back to Zoro’s side. The marimo is slumped in a chair off stage now, watching Zeff through sleepy eyes. Zeff is being interviewed in front of the cameras and an audience. 

Zoro sags a little at his reappearance but a quick chug of an energy drink seems to bring him back to life.

“Check out our mystery guests.” The psychic says pointing into the audience. Sanji squints and makes out Smoker sitting at the end of an aisle with Tagashi next to him. Sanji’s eyes widen, he wants the cops there as soon as Creuset confesses, if he actually does. 

“How did it go?” Zoro asks quietly, his eyes focused on Zeff.

“Not great, he seems to think it’s all in his head.” Sanji answers unhappily. 

“Hm, well. We’ll see.” Zoro shrugs and returns his attention to Zeff. Creuset is lurking now off of the other side of the stage, waiting for his cue to come on. The interview with Zeff is just about wrapping up.

“I know that he didn’t kill himself, Sanji would never do that.” Zeff asserts to the interviewer.

“It’s so tragic for a parent, so hard to believe that their child would take their own life.” The interviewer says sadly, clucking her tongue.

“It’s hard to believe because it’s not true, someone killed Sanji. Someone with motive.” Zeff states firmly. The interviewer doesn’t seem to know what to say about that and flounders for a moment.

“But the police-” She starts.

“Are wrong. And that’s all I have to say about that.” The old man says finally and folds his arms clearly ending the conversation. Sanji winces, Zeff for all his qualities is not a man made to be on TV. 

The interviewer panics and with too much enthusiasm to be genuine welcomes on Creuset who smiles and waves as he comes on set and sits down on the other side of the interviewer to Zeff. The interviewer starts some spiel about how does it feel to see such a young fellow chef come to a tragic end and did he feel like Sanji deserved his win on his last day. 

“We actually have a clip for you here. Let’s take a look.” She announces.

“Showtime.” Zoro grins. 

On a screen behind them a clip of the show starts. It begins with Sanji and Creuset cooking, seeming normal but then the screen splits into two views, one of Sanji and one of Creuset. It’s the same part that Zoro had played him, his cooking being enthusiastic and showing the bottle whilst on the other screen Creuset’s expression becomes darker and darker. 

It’s clear now from the interviewer’s face that this was not the clip that they had been expecting but clearly no one has the sense to pull the plug or someone has prevented them. Sanji’s gaze darts down to Zoro who’s grin is wide, vengeful and bordering on psychopathic. This was his work. That’s what he’d been doing on his laptop all that time, he’d been putting the video together and hacking into the studio’s files somehow! He’d replaced the intended clip with this one of his own design!

The screen blows up to a tight shot of Creuset’s face and the audio suddenly becomes loud and over enhanced. The screen flashes up subtitles as Creuset’s lips move, making it clear to everyone that the slightly garbled audio did indeed come from the man’s lips. Zoro must have spent ages scouring the tapes for this, but it’s worth it.

“Fucking cheat… I’ll kill him.” Creuset’s distorted voice booms through the studio, the subtitles are almost unnecessary Creuset’s lips are moving right along with the words and it’s clear as day that he said them. The clip starts looping, playing Creuset’s threat over and over again. The power suddenly cuts and the screen goes blank throwing the studio lights back on. In the light it’s clear to see that Creuset’s face has gone ghostly white whilst Zeff looks like he might just leap across and paint his shoes with Creuset’s brains.

“Wh-what is this? Some kind of sick joke? Did you invite me here just to show these… these LIES?!” the cook screeches furiously. 

“You’re a goddamn genius.” Sanji breathes in awe.

“Perhaps not, he looks like he’s in denial, not about to confess. I overdid it.” Zoro scowls standing up. He turns to face Sanji and takes a deep breath.

“It’s all up to you now.” Zoro breathes, locking eyes with Sanji. 

“You don’t have much time, give it everything you’ve got.” Zoro adds before stepping in close to Sanji and pressing his mouth to his. Sanji tries to jerk away out of shock but somehow Zoro has him locked where he is. His mouth feels hot at Zoro’s kiss, like a sudden ray of sunshine on skin. He feels… something coursing through his body, something similar to what he felt when he first possessed someone. Something in his chest pulses like a heartbeat.

As suddenly as it started it stops and Zoro drops to his knees, sliding down Sanji’s body as he falls. Sanji manages to catch him before the idiot brains himself on the chair that he was sitting on before. That’s when he notices his hands, they’re solid. They’re solid and not at all see through. He glances down, he has a body and a shadow!

“Go.” Zoro breathes in a rattling wheeze. His expression says goodbye. This is Sanji’s last chance, and he can’t waste it at any cost. He stands up and stretches his arms feeling the power and energy flow through him, he’s not alive, he’s more powerful than that.

With a mere thought he blows the power to all of the white lights in the room and vanishes and reappears in the centre of the room. With another thought all of the red filtered lights turn on, bathing the stage in a hideous red colour. His shadow strikes the wall behind Creset in a terrifying visage. The eyes of Creuset, the interviewer and Zeff are on him, all wide and shocked. They can see him. 

This is no time for celebration though, he doesn’t know how much time Zoro has bought him. He ominously points his finger and raises his arm to point at Creuset.

“Confess.” He hisses, his voice sounding almost reptilian and seeming to echo from every point in the room.

Creuset backs up against his seat like a terrified cornered rat. He’s visibly shaking all over and chanting “no, no!” over and over again.

“My blood is on your hands!” He screams, sounding like a thousand voices from hell. Creuset glances down at his hands and thick red liquid is oozing out of his palms and flowing from between his fingers, leaving a bloody puddle on the floor. It’s an endless waterfall of blood. He advances closer. The interviewer shrieks in horror and tries to climb up onto her chair away from the rapidly spreading pool of blood.

“I CONFESS!” Cresuet screams in terror, staring at his bloody hands.

“I killed him! I did it! Make it stop, make it stop!” Creuset shrieks.

Sanji stops in his tracks and feels the power flow out of him. The lights click back onto normal and Creuset’s hands look unmarred without a drop of blood to be seen. Sanji glances down at himself and finds himself semi transparent again, he’s invisible once more. Creuset however is crouched on the floor rocking back and forth on his heels repeating “I did it” endlessly.

“Well, I think you had better come down to the station with us about that.” Smoker states behind Sanji, as he and Tagashi stand up from their seats. The clearly shaken sergeant Tagashi runs past Sanji without seeing him and handcuffs Creuset as she reads him his rights. 

They did it, Creuset confessed, he’s going to go to jail. He feels… glowy almost. He’s going to be- no! 

Sanji dashes across the room to Zoro, trying desperately not to think about what just happened. He doesn’t want to thin about it because it might be the last thing that he thinks about here. He crouches down before Zoro, his heart in his throat. Zoro smiles at him weakly.

“You were great.” He breathes with a small smile.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Sanji answers honestly and places his hand on Zoro’s heart, reassured by its steady thump. Zoro is still alive, he’s okay. His hand is starting to glow golden though, as though a brilliant light is escaping from every pore.

“Wait for me on the other side?” Zoro asks gently.

“You’d better make me wait a long time, asshole. I mean it.” Sanji grits out.

“I promise.” The marimo nods. 

And with that something inside of Sanji relaxes like a muscle finally letting go of something heavy. Creuset is going to jail, everything will be okay. Zoro fades from his vision to be replaced with white light.


	12. Chapter 12

Sanji’s eyes open to unbelievable whiteness, it’s everywhere in his field of vision, seemingly without end. His first thoughts are of Zoro. He remembers Zoro’s weak look, his small sad smile at seeing him go. Something inside of him recoils from the very idea that he left Zoro behind. He feels a little sick actually. 

He sits up unevenly from where he had been sprawled on more white nothingness. Just behind him and slightly to the right is some water, what sounds like a river. It’s a little way away but he can see people clustered around it and talking rapidly, although he can’t make out their words. If this is the afterlife then it’s not much for him to tell Zoro about when he goes back. Something primal inside of him writes again in pain and this time it’s enough to prompt him to look down. 

There is this… thing sticking out of his chest. Just slightly off centre there is a big red… thing! He’d say that it’s like a rope but it’s clearly made of something tougher, it reminds him almost of suspension bridge cables if those things were red and bleeding. Surprisingly enough it’s not disgust or horror that washes over him as he stares down at the bleeding knotted cable coming from his chest but a deep instinctual fear. The thing twitches like some kind of snake with it’s fangs in his heart and it sends a spasm of pain through Sanji’s entire being. 

He yelps and clutches at it and the pain intensifies, it feels worse than any burn or cut he’s ever felt. He feels like it’s ripping him apart from the inside, as if thousands of tiny teeth are pulling him apart molecule by molecule. He curls up, sobbing and screaming because this is pain beyond pain. 

Someone to his side curses and rolls him onto his back, he recognises the face but he can’t devote enough of his mind to place it when he hurts so much that he can barely remember his own name. He howls animalistically as he is picked up, jolting the thing sprouting from his sternum. He writhes and thrashes and is vaguely aware of being dropped through something and landing on something hard. As his back makes contact with the ground the pain level drops to something tolerable. 

He rolls onto his side and curls up, still coughing out sobs as the pain ebbs a little more. 

“Whoa, easy, easy. Come on, you’re going to be okay.” A voice says soothingly. 

He forces his eyes open and looks up at the distinctive face above him, his mind scrambles and finally places it.

“Usopp.” He croaks, making the liar smile slightly. 

“So you found him then.” A young girl’s voice says in an unimpressed tone. 

“Oi, you could have helped!” Usopp shoots back indignantly and moves slightly allowing Sanji to see. The girl is small, no more than seven years old, with bright orange hair and lavender eyes. She’s bickering with Usopp about… something, him possibly. He doesn’t listen. His eyes instead are fixed on something hanging from a green thread around the girl’s neck, it seems familiar and the thing in his chest aches a little less to see it. He reaches for it until his finger presses on the glass, bringing a small wave of pain relief flooding through him. 

“It’s Zoro.” He breathes without really understanding his words. The glass is round like a bauble with a red and black metallic arrow floating inside of it. It’s smooth to the touch and he can see now that he’s sat up a little closer to the girl that the thing is a sort of three dimensional compass. As he touches it the needle follows his finger around, no matter where he slides it. It points to him. When he takes his hand back though it flickers around briefly before pointing back towards the direction that Sanji instinctively knows is north. 

“Zoro gave it to me.” The little girl says by way of explanation. 

“Zoro was my age when he found me, I’d gotten lost in a forest. I was there for so long. I couldn’t find my way out, I kept getting turned around to where I started again. Then Zoro found me, he gave me this, said it’d help me find my way out. We walked out of the forest together but then I vanished before I could give it back.” The girl explains childishly. Sanji’s mind struggles to catch up, this girl had died and Zoro had helped her. 

“It’s his sense of direction.” Usopp chuckles. Sanji’s eyes widen and he touches the warm glass again, the needle shivers, seeming somehow happy, and follows his fingers around the glass again.

A laugh bubbles out of him, no wonder Zoro was always ass backwards lost if he’d given this thing away.

“Nami was the first one that Zoro helped, just after his parents died and he started to see. As you can see, she’s not the only one that valued his help.” Another female voice says above him. He looks up, it’s Robin looking down on him.

Unsteadily he stands and as the pain fades more he’s able to notice more, he’s surrounded by people. Robin and Usopp are nearest to him, with the little girl. But further away are hundreds of people, all milling around looking at him and the thing in his chest.

He looks down at the thing in his chest again, it doesn’t hurt so much now, it’s more like a dull ache. And it looks less like a steel rope now and more like one of those velvet museum ropes. It is however still dripping blood in a disconcerting way and every so often it writhes like a snake and sends a spasm of pain through him. 

“What… what is this?” he asks reaching up uncertainly, not sure if he dares to touch it again after the last dose of pain. 

“Don’t touch it!” A boy in a straw hat yelps and drags his hand away. 

“Eesh, doesn’t he know anything? Didn’t he drink from the river?” A slightly older guy to the side says, he’s wearing a cowboy hat with faces on and he smells slightly… singed. 

“No, he didn’t have time. He was in too much pain and I had to get him here.” Usopp answers with a shake of his head. 

“Will someone please explain what’s going on here?!” He demands impatiently, looking around the group. 

“That thing in your chest is… have you ever heard of the idea of a red string of fate? A line connecting soul mates to each other?” Robin begins in an academic tone, her blue eyes holding him fast to the spot. 

“I guess…” He frowns uncertainly. 

“Well, that’s what you get after lifetimes. Thousands on thousands of those strings knotted together to form a bond that’s stronger than you are. Most people don’t do that to themselves because, as you just found out, it can go disastrously wrong.” Robin points out, gesturing to the thing in his chest.

“You weren’t supposed to die, but you weren’t supposed to go either. Not like you just did. You left Zoro here alone.” Robin adds with an air of accusation. 

“You, you told me to make up for my mistake!” Sanji says defensively, why is it that whenever he sees Robin he feels like his entire integrity as a man is being attacked?

“Not by making him promise to stay here when you left!” The raven haired lady snaps angrily, her fists balling threateningly at her sides.

“Hey, calm down! He didn’t know!” The straw-hat guy says leaping between them and parting them. He looks between the two of them until they both calm down a little. Robin huffs and steps back, diverting her gaze away into the distance with a scowl. 

“You know sometimes when old people who have been in love forever die that one of them goes first only to be shortly followed by the other? Sometimes only days after?” Usopp explains gently, touching him on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” Sanji frowns, not liking the sound of where he was going with this.

“When you died Zoro’s time started running out. It slowed a little when you met him again, even your presence in death was enough to do that, but it never stopped slipping away. That didn’t stop when he solved your murder and you left this world, it got worse.” Usopp continues looking uncomfortable with what he has to say.

“He didn’t know it, but when he tried to jump off of that building he was trying to follow you. Only his stupid feet found the one building in the city that you were tethered to. The only thing that he can reliably find without this is you.” Nami sighs, holding up the glass compass which obligingly briefly flicks away from north to point at him before returning to its mark.

Sanji’s brain whirrs to keep up. Zoro had said something about that… when he had pressed the man about killing himself he’d said… that it’d been like a light had gone out of the world, like he no longer belonged there.

“But… wouldn’t I have been stuck there without Zoro?” He frowns, remembering his futile attempts to escape before the moss head found him.

“No, when he died his leaving would have pulled you with him. Unlike me, who if you hadn’t have met Zoro and kept him wandering around I’d be rotted away by now. So some of us are happy that you two ran into each other again.” Usopp says sharply, glaring up at Robin who scowls back at him.

“Good for you, but this is hurting Zoro!” She retorts waspishly, her hands on her wide hips. 

“This is hurting him?!” Sanji yelps, panic flooding his system. He doesn’t want to hurt Zoro, he’d give anything to keep the man from pain, something gives him the sensation that he always has. Well, if this rope coming out of his heart is hurting Zoro then it has to go! He reaches up and wraps his hands around it and pulls. 

Blinding agony explodes in his head and he collapses to the ground with a scream. He lashes out with every limb until the pain fades. 

“You IDIOT! You’re torturing him!” Robin shouts in his ear. That stills him at once. The hands that he hadn’t even realised were restraining him let him go carefully. He relaxes against the floor, it’s concrete under him, a road he realises. By his face the red cord rests, stretching out down the road, through the feet of the crowd that has gathered. He tilts his face towards it until his cheek and ear are pressed against it. It’s warm and his ear can pick up a frantic heartbeat through it, Zoro’s heartbeat. 

“Sanji, you need to listen to us. With you being on the other side there’s a problem. You can’t go back to Zoro so-” The straw hat guy starts but Sanji isn’t listening. He can’t go back to Zoro? Bullshit. He’s got a line from his heart to Zoro’s, he’ll find him and he’ll stop this pain. He’ll protect him. He launches to his feet, scattering startled people around him and sprints forward. The rope gives no slack as he moves, as if it’s coiling back into an endless spool in his ribcage. The people that were gathered behind him have started chasing him, yelling at him to stop but he won’t stop. Not whilst Zoro needs him. 

Another stab of pain shoots through him but he flies like the wind anyway, hurtling through living people and buildings alike. He recognises this place it’s his and Zoro’s city, he’s back in the real world. Zoro is slumped against a building in an alleyway, his hand over his heart and his teeth gritted tightly. 

The rope between them is mere meters long now but the closeness doesn’t seem to have appeased it. It lashes violently like some predatory animal, sending a snap of pain through him. Zoro’s body arcs away from the wall and a scream rips from his lips. One hand clenches against the wall, sending his nails skittering up be brickwork whilst the other presses hard over his heart.

“Zoro, it’s okay, I’m here.” He says reaching for Zoro. He tries to put his hand on Zoro’s sweat beaded forehead but his hand slides right through. It doesn’t feel like it did when he was a ghost, like he was sliding through something wet and cold, this time it’s as intangible as swiping your hand through someone’s shadow – he doesn’t feel a thing. And neither does Zoro by the look of him.

The wave of pain passes and Zoro slides slightly down the wall with a groan. He tries to speak to Zoro again but the green haired man can’t hear him.

“He’s not going to hear you, you can’t go back. This world is shut to you, it took me ages to get to talk to you when you were already dead. That’s what’s causing all of this for Zoro, you can’t go anywhere- but he can.” Robin says from behind him, evidently she had been hot on his tail.

“You… you don’t mean that this is killing him? Is he having a heart attack or something?” Sanji says in horror, pressing his hand to Zoro’s heart. There had to be something that he could do wasn’t there? Zoro had given him his energy before he had exploded into golden light, couldn’t he give some back to heal him if that was the problem?

“No, you’re not listening. He doesn’t belong in this world, wherever the two of you are you belong there together and seeing as how you can’t come back to this world properly as you’re dead, Zoro can’t stay here. He has to die. When you died he instinctively tried to follow you, but you made him promise not to do that so he’s stayed here. Only now the world itself is rejecting him.” Robin explains carefully. 

“But the pain…?” He questions looking at her.

“Is your bond reacting to the separation.” She answers. 

Sanji turns his gaze back to Zoro’s pained face. The man pushes away from the wall unsteadily and stumbles off through Sanji and Robin, back out onto the street. Sanji stares miserably after him hating the helpless feeling. 

“Well, if he can’t see me and I’m not making this any better by being closer why did you bring me here?” Sanji demands unhappily, he can’t stand seeing Zoro so hurt. 

Robin looks away sharply at that, and bites her lip. Sanji hates to upset a woman but what she’s doing to him is downright cruel.

“Because… because I hope that I’m wrong. I hope that Zoro will be able to see you soon, that your bond will be enough to allow him to see you. Because I don’t want him to be alone when it happens.” She says quietly.

“Zoro wasn’t my son, I didn’t have any children. But… I fostered him, I looked after him. And he was so fragile when I first took him in, his parents had died and I didn’t know it but he was dealing with this power that he didn’t understand.” Robin says sadly, watching him stumble down the street. 

“I’m not his mother but I want to believe that some of the honourable man that he is today is because of me. I just wish that I’d done more, that I’d done or said something so that he would have told me about this kind of thing. And if the least that I can do to make up for that is bringing him the most important person in the world to him when he’s at his weakest that’s what I’ll do!” Her eyes are alight with passion now, full of protectiveness and loyalty that Sanji recognises from Zeff. The protective instinct of a parent.

Sanji doesn’t want to ask, he doesn’t want to form the question to the answer that he dreads that Robin will give him, he doesn’t want to look at the sad knowing eyes of the others that have gathered around him again. But he has to.

“When… when it happens?” He asks shakily.

“When he dies.” The guy in the cowboy hat says simply.

“No.” He breathes backing up away from them.

“No!” He yells chasing after Zoro. He won’t let Zoro die, he can’t! He will make this right, even if Robin thinks that he can’t, even if it takes everything that he has. Maybe he can possess someone again for blocks of time, enough to keep Zoro alive and out of pain. 

He sprints after Zoro. He can’t really say whether he sees it coming or feels it coming but something makes him glance up in time to see the air conditioning unit sliding free of its home on the windowsill four stories above Zoro. He knows that it’s going to hit Zoro, he knows that just as he knows that it will surely kill the man. He doesn’t know what else to do but reach for the cord coming from his chest and yank on it. He pulls on it hard enough to wrench a scream from himself and to make Zoro stumble back in pain and double over. 

The air conditioning unit explodes into a million pieces on the floor before the unharmed Zoro. The psychic breathes deep and panicky as he backs up, staring in horror at the machine that nearly just ended his life. Shaking his head he walks around it wide eyed and glancing up every so often with freshly renewed caution, trailing his spectral crowd behind him. 

“Are you just going to keep doing that forever Sanji? The pain is only going to get worse for both of you the longer that you’re apart.” Usopp calls after him. He’s probably right but he just can’t bear to allow Zoro to die if he can stop it, every inch of his soul cries out against the idea. 

“Zoro, please… please hear me. Don’t die.” He begs quietly, his hand on Zoro’s back as the man walks. Zoro pauses and for a second he thinks that Zoro has heard him, the man turns his head as if trying to place a sound. And it’s not until the truck flies through his intangible body that he realises that it wasn’t him that Zoro had thought he heard. 

He thinks that he’s in shock. Can you be in shock when you’re dead and without a body? If you can then that’s what he is in. Brick and mortar dust cloud his vision for a second but as it clears Sanji’s wide eyes take in the massive hole in the wall that Zoro was just walking by that is now filled with the back end of a truck. Zoro isn’t… isn’t where he was just standing, almost comically one of his shoes is on the floor. Those shitty converses with duct tape wrapped around them to hold them together, the stupid tape that Zoro had painted white to try to blend it in.

He’s sure that he screams, he’s not sure what, probably Zoro’s name. But he flies through the wall and follows the direction that the cable coming from his chest leads.

There is plaster dust raining down from the ceiling and steam spurting out of parts of the ruined shop, it looks like it was some kind of closed down second hand junk furniture shop. He screams Zoro's name for all the good that it'll do him, he can't see Zoro anywhere on the floor or cushioned like he'd hoped on something soft. The rope in his chest doesn’t lead that way anyway, not like he had hoped it would.

With hesitation he makes his way to the front of the truck where it lies embedded in the back wall of the shop. His eyes pick up the flash of green and his heart breaks. Zoro is slumped face-down over the hood of the truck, pinned between it and the wall. There is... blood, a lot of it. Blood up the wall, on the floor and across the front of the truck and its window.

"Zoro..." he whines. The physical pain in his chest from the cord between them has stopped but the emotional pain of seeing Zoro like this is worse. He doesn't know whether he wants Zoro to be alive or not.

He doesn't get a say in the matter however, as Zoro's chest rises and falls shakily. Zoro hacks out a cough with an unhealthily large flow of blood running down his chin. Sanji doesn't know what to do, part of him wants to murder the truck driver for doing this to Zoro regardless of whether this was an accident or not, but even if he could he doesn't want to leave Zoro's side.

"Sssan-ji."

Sanji's gaze snaps back to Zoro who is looking up at him with a weak smile.

"He CAN see you!" Robin exclaims behind him in a choked voice.

"I'm here Zoro." he assures the man, reaching over and pressing his intangible palm in Zoro's and the other in Zoro's bleeding hairline.

"I'm here." he repeats a little more steadily.

Zoro tries to push himself up on his elbows but an unpleasant and slightly organic tearing noise stops Zoro with a painful looking flinch.

"Stay still idiot! Just... just focus on me okay?" Sanji scolds him.

Breathing raggedly Zoro slumps back onto the hood and looks up at Sanji.

"You came back." Zoro says raspily.

"I should have come back sooner, I leave you for five minutes and look what happens." Sanji says forcing a strained laugh out. He needs to keep Zoro distracted from the pain. He's no doctor but even he can see that Zoro hasn't got long like this, all he wants is for it to be as painless for Zoro as is physically possible.

"Two months." Zoro corrects him weakly, with a weak flutter of his eyelids.

"It... It didn't seem more than five minutes where I was..." He breathes in horror.

"I'm so sorry for everything Zoro, I screwed this all up. I never meant to leave you alone, I never meant for THIS to happen." he sobs trying to hold Zoro's hand tighter but his fingers just slide through. All he wants is to touch Zoro and make this better.

"Oi Nami, you don't need to see this. Come on." Usopp's voice says behind Sanji as he tries to usher the girl out and away from the gory scene.

"But- but I need to give this back to Zoro." Nami's tearful voice says as she holds up the shining bauble that is Zoro’s sense of direction.

"Give it to him next time yeah?" Usopp says gently, giving Sanji an idea. 

He turns back to Zoro with a forced smile and strokes his fingers down Zoro’s cheek even though he’s fairly certain that Zoro can’t feel it.

"Hey, I'll tell you what." he says forcing a brightness that he doesn't feel into his voice.

"You believe in reincarnation right? Well, it looks like you might be right." he says remembering Robin's words about the connection between them, she said that it was made over thousands of lifetimes.

"Just... just be strong a little longer and we can go and try this again. Only this time we won't die and we'll find each other, won't we?" He insists.

“I could kick your ass if you’re alive.” Zoro says weakly with a blood tinged grin.

“Psha, you can try! And… and I’ll cook for you, you’ll get to eat my food, like you were supposed to. We could see the world, have adventures, do whatever we want. Got it?” He smiles a little more genuinely now. 

Zoro nods weakly, his skin is even paler now, paler than Sanji ever was. He rests his forehead on the hood of the truck and shudders.

“’Cold.” Zoro mumbles sluggishly. 

“I’m not going anywhere, not without you.” Sanji says vehemently. He moves a little closer to Zoro, his hand still in Zoro’s. Zoro is starting to feel a little more solid to him now and a glance out of the corner of his eye confirms that Zoro’s hand has some ghostly looking fingers just touching Sanji’s. It seems that Zoro is losing sensation in his extremities, dying bit by bit and moving more into Sanji’s new world. He squeezes Zoro’s hand and leans over so that his head is resting just by Zoro’s. Zoro’s breathing is shallow and erratic, sounding laboured and hard come by.

“Does… it hurt?” Zoro says in something that is little more than a weak breath shaped by his lips.

“You have a truck in your chest and you’re asking me if dying hurts?” Sanji laughs bitterly. Zoro doesn’t answer him though, just blinks in a lazy and uncoordinated way.

“No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s like waking up. You know that feeling when you’re still all warm and sleepy under the covers? It’s just like that.” He lies smoothly. For him waking up on the other side was excruciating, but that could easily have been from his connection to Zoro being snapped taut, he’s not going to tell Zoro that though. 

Zoro’s red lips quirk slightly at him. Sanji feels it happen more than sees it, perhaps Zoro’s eyes unfocus a little but instead he feels Zoro move slightly as his… soul disconnects from his body. There is the same golden light that Sanji is now familiar with. 

He grips Zoro’s hand harder, he is not going to lose him, not after all of this. He holds on to Zoro for all that he is worth and trusts that wherever Zoro goes he will go too. The world seems to pull upwards and the things around him and spirits around him blur out of sight.

 

When he comes to it is like waking up, he feels warm and safe. The sky above him is endlessly white and he feels soft grass under his bare skin beneath him. There is a nose pressed into his pulse point in his neck and soft lips against the join between his neck and his shoulders, there is an arm around his waist and he knows without looking that it is Zoro. He feels Zoro’s heart in his own chest, not that he has a physical heart of course, or a physical chest for that matter, but he feels Zoro. It feels similar to how he felt when Zoro kissed him, he felt the familiar shores of Zoro’s soul, only now he’s in there and being lapped by the waves. 

He opens his eyes and looks at Zoro who smirks toothily at him. 

“You again?” Zoro teases, pushing himself up on his arms and holding himself above Sanji. He looks different maybe, if Sanji doesn’t focus he swears that he can see a thousand different but incredibly similar faces, he can see millions of scars that both are and aren’t there. But that green hair, the dark eyes and clever snarky mouth are unchanging. 

“So we have done this before then?” Sanji asks, having suspected that they had from Robin’s words but having taken heed from Zoro that Robin was not always… honest.

Looking down at their chests though he can’t see the twisted cable that connected them, it’s not there anymore. Instead, almost as thin as spider silk is a ruby red line from Zoro’s heart down to his, it feels new. When he looks up at Zoro again though there’s a frown on the other man’s face.

“You’ve forgotten?” He asks.

“I don’t… I guess?” He shrugs not knowing what it is that he doesn’t know.

“Your memory is terrible sometimes.” Zoro remarks with a roll of his eyes. He gives Sanji a considering and slightly predatory look and leans in closer.

“This always jogs my memory.” He mutters and kisses Sanji gently. Sanji shivers all over and smiles into the kiss.

When Zoro pulls away though he notices something, not memories coming back as Zoro intended but he spots a dark swirling cloud in the previously unbroken expanse of white. Zoro seems to spot his gaze and glances up. The sky is spinning now, with dark grey clouds swirling ominously like… like a twister. He’s feeling confused and unsure until Zoro’s gaze snaps back to him with steely determination and an edge of fear, then Sanji starts to feel panicky.

“What’s happening for it to be this soon? I barely even saw you this last time, I can’t lose you again so quickly! It hurts too much!” Zoro says fiercely, yanking them both to their feet. Zoro grabs his hand firmly and yanks him off into a run. They sprint along the grass under their feet but as Sanji looks up he realises that they’re just looping around in a way that he’s sure has nothing to do with Zoro’s missing sense of direction.

“We’re not getting anywhere!” He exclaims, pulling Zoro to a stop. The marimo glances up at the steadily descending twister with a glare.

“You’re right.” He agrees bitterly as the wind picks up to worrying levels.

“What’s happening?” He asks Zoro as he steps closer, fearful of losing the other man in the wind. 

“It’s starting again, the reincarnation. Listen to me, come here.” Zoro says loudly over the wind whistling in Sanji’s ears.

“Look at my face, remember me. Look for me, I can’t be apart from you like last time again, it feels too wrong.” Zoro orders him, clutching Sanji’s face in his hands.

“I don’t understand!” He shouts over the wind, his hair whipping him in the face.

“Just promise me that you won’t forget! Remember my face!” Zoro yells to him.

Sanji doesn’t get time to reply though as the force of the twister finally sucks them up off of the floor. His feet flail in the air. He snags his arm onto Zoro’s though, his hand locked on Zoro’s elbow and Zoro’s locked on his. 

“Promise me that you won’t forget me!” Zoro demands again in a scream.

“I- I PROMISE!” Sanji yells for all he’s worth. They’re spinning uncontrollably now and he feels his grip on Zoro failing. A bright light opens behind Zoro and the forces on them get stronger, trying to spin them apart. 

“I WON’T FORGET YOU!” He shouts as his hand slips down to Zoro’s wrist. His eyes lock on Zoro’s dark ones one last time before they’re ripped apart into the blinding light.


	13. Chapter 13

The wind whips fiercely around Sanji's face, flicking his hair against his skin painfully. He doesn't care about that, he never does, what he does care about is the man holding onto his arm. He stares at the golden skin, the unusual green hair, the dark eyes and the clever mouth. He knows the man's face by heart of course, he's seen him every night of his life in his dreams. He tries desperately to hold on, flailing with his free arm trying to reach for him as if he could ever change the dream and not lose his grip.

"I haven't forgotten you!" he yells over the howling wind.

The alarm wakes him this time and interrupts his dream before he loses his grip on him. He silences it and rolls over again in his bed, pulling the duvet over his head and hiding in the warm soft cave it creates. He likes being in there, in his own little world that feels safe and warm with the memories of the green haired man fresh in his mind.

He runs his fingers over the bare skin over his heart, the place that he and the green haired man are joined in his dream.

"Morning." he breathes curled up so that he whispers the words as close to his heart as possible. He places his palm over his heart and focuses. He's had the dreams as long as he's been alive. His parents had thought that it was cute at first, they thought that he had an imaginary friend, but as he'd got older and not gotten bored of the idea they'd become worried. They had sent him to doctors and head shrinkers to fix him, they'd told him that he was sick, that he had to forget the dreams, that he had to stop talking to himself. He'd known that they were wrong of course, so he'd run off to the sea to try and find his soulmate. That's what he was sure the man was of course.

He reluctantly sits up in bed and decides to get ready for the day, the waiters had walked out on them again because they were a bunch of cowards, so despite being a sous-chef and not a goddamn waiter he was going to have to fill in. He's tugging on his shirt when he feels it in his chest, a slow unfurling like a flower opening in the sun.

"Lazy ass, just waking up now are we?" he snickers to himself. The guy was a big lover of sleep and frequently drifted off during the day as well as often rising later than Sanji himself.

He makes his way down to the kitchen and starts cooking for the morning, getting what work he can do done before he has to play waiter. He almost gets turned around on the way down though, he blinks in confusion and rubs his heart. He closes his eyes and focuses on the gentle almost imperceptible pull in his chest, it's no longer pulling slightly northeast like it usually does, it's fully east now, maybe even a little southeast. No wonder he got disorientated.

"Where are you going?" he mumbles. The man has moved around before but never such a big difference overnight. Which means... Either he travelled very fast overnight or he's closer and changing direction. His heart speeds up, could he really be getting closer? Perhaps being at the front of the restaurant and seeing every face wouldn't be such a bad thing today!

He's on his way to the front of the restaurant to take a look outside when the boom of a cannon and the smash of splintering wood startles him. It turns out that some idiot somehow redirected a cannonball into Zeff's room. The old geezer isn't hurt though, not really, and he forces the idiot in the cheap looking hat to work for a year as payment. It’d be a first if the guy sticks around for that long but Sanji is grateful for the help. He returns downstairs and gets on with serving, peering at every face as he does so.

It’s not too long before some Navy asshole starts giving him shit and whilst he's never in the mood for that he's even less in the mood for it today. Thankfully he gets a chance to kick the guy's ass before Zeff and the new chore boy crash through the ceiling and Zeff kicks the Navy guy out.

Patty is his usual heartless self and kicks some poor starving pirate out because he has no money. There's nothing that he can do but sneak outside and feed the guy. The chore boy appears though and whilst he seems nice enough, albeit completely mad, he starts going on about joining his crew and travelling the grand line. He turns the guy down of course, he can't leave Zeff, not when he owes such a large debt to him and he won't leave when he can feel that his soul mate is so close.

He sidles back into the kitchen after a sneaky smoke and disposing of the evidence of Gin's free meal. He expects to get the stink eye from Patty as he usually does when this happens but instead all the other chefs are staring at him and pretending that they're not.

"What?" he demands irritably.

"Green haired man, table three." Patty says seriously.

Sanji's heart runs at a million miles a minute, they've had false alarms before, whilst green hair is rare and weird it's not unheard of. But today of all days when the pull in his chest has moved... Could it be? Everyone in the Baratie knows to tell him the moment that a green haired man is spotted, most don't know why but Patty and Carne who have been around the longest with the exception of Sanji himself know the full story. Which is why, regardless of current disputes, Patty is telling him this seriously and watching him closely.

Sanji gulps as he looks at the swinging kitchen doors and the porthole windows in them, his hands are even shaking. The other cooks are more or less ignoring him and kicking the chore boy out, ordering him to be a waiter. The straw hat wearing chore boy wanders out of the doors as Sanji gets the guts to look through the window.

He sees him. Green hair, those dark powerful eyes and that clever mouth quirking into a grin. Recognition crosses his features and his face brightens. Sanji's heart is in his throat, it's him.

"Is it really him? Let me see!" Patty exclaims. Apparently Sanji had spoken aloud without realising it. Sanji expects the guy to call out to him but the more seconds pass the more the guy's gaze tracks away from him, he's looking at Luffy!

"Hello chore boy!" he laughs along with the others at his table. He knows Luffy! Shitting shit! He knows Luffy. They both know Luffy, he should… he should go introduce himself or… something. Oh god, what was he supposed to do? He’s fantasised a million times about meeting the green haired man, usually involving some kind of cool situation where he gets to show off to his soul mate or perhaps the green haired man spots him and drags him into a soul scorching kiss. But… now that the moment is here he’s uncertain and nervous.

“Table three needs wine, crap chef. Get out there.” Patty orders him, shoving the wine bottle into his hand and shoving him out of the door. He’s cursing Patty inside for shoving him out there but it’s probably best that he just get this over with and not psych himself out, probably why the helpful asshole did it too. 

With legs that feel like jelly he walks over to table three, surreptitiously staring at his dream man the whole way. He can only really see the guy in profile from where he’s standing but he knows the man’s face obviously, but he hasn’t been seen by him yet. He manages to mumble out something about the wine to the customers on table three and throw a pleasing smile at the way of the lady at the table, not that he remembers and not that he could tell you a damn thing about her if you asked him but still. He eyes the green haired man talking to Luffy and thinks to himself that he should definitely say something. He’s teasing the straw hat kid who has just become infinitely important to Sanji now that he’s become his gateway to that man. He should… he should really say something. 

“Can we change the ship’s flag?” the green haired man says wittily to Luffy. God, that is pretty funny, he knew the guy would be funny. Hell, he’s always been smitten for the man in his dreams but now he’s positively head over heels!

Luffy explodes into indignity, not over the teasing but over the fact that they’re eating and he’s having to work off his debt. His voice is loud enough for Sanji to have an excuse to speak up.

“Quiet down Luffy, are they your mates?” He asks. Yes, that was pretty smooth. He warily steps a little closer to the group, close enough to see Luffy putting a vengeful booger in the green haired man’s drink, he fakes picking it up to drink it before quick as lightning grabbing Luffy and forcing it down his throat. The two shout and scrabble completely ignoring Sanji.

Shit. What does he do now? He’s staring at the guy who hasn’t noticed him at all and he can’t just stand here doing that. Panicking he looks around for some other excuse to be standing by their table until the green haired man notices him. His eyes land on the pretty redheaded girl and some kind of habit kicks in. He practically throws himself at her, being effusive with praise and saying how he would give up everything and follow her to sea for her beauty if it were not for the tragic obstacles in their way blah, blah, blah.

“Obstacles Sanji?” Zeff’s voice booms from behind him, scaring him half out of his skin. He spins, how the hell is a man with a goddamned peg leg so stealthy? He stares wide eyed at his father figure who is looking at him with that ever present scowl.

“Follow your heart, go be a pirate. I don’t need you here anymore.” Zeff says firmly. 

“What?!” Sanji gawps. He tracks the flick of Zeff’s eyes though and, when looking through the curtain of his own hair, he sees the green haired man looking at him. Dark curious eyes watching the fight between him and Zeff. He understands Zeff’s words, Zeff has known his dreams long enough and knows him well enough to recognise his heightened anxiety around the green haired man. Follow your heart he says. It’s all well and good but what if he doesn’t want to leave? He owes Zeff a debt of gratitude, he owes him his life, just because he has found his green haired man doesn’t mean that he can just up and leave.

“I’m the assistant chef here, what do you mean I’m not needed?” He demands with a scowl.

“You fight with the customers, you waste hours flaring your nostrils for the women. And you’re a lousy cook. You’re nothing but a dead weight Sanji. The other cooks don’t like you much either, so go be a pirate and get out of my restaurant.” Zeff says coldly. Sanji knows the old man doesn’t mean it, but he has no intention of leaving and Zeff knows that. Zeff evidently is trying to make him though.

“Don’t step over the line old man! You can insult me but don’t ever insult my cooking! I’m staying here and you have no say in the matter!” He shouts, jabbing Zeff in the chest. Zeff snags his hand and throws Sanji through the table that Luffy’s crew and the green haired man were sitting at. He expects to have food all over him but he glances up to see the green haired man has somehow blindingly quickly grabbed the plates up off of the table. 

He doesn’t like to waste food either rolls through his slightly dazed brain as he stares up vacantly at the man. He leaves pretty quickly after that, feeling more than a touch embarrassed at getting his ass handed to him by his adoptive father and airing all their dirty laundry right in front of his soul mate at their first meeting. On his return he attempts to talk to the green haired man but chickens out and flirts with the navigator Nami instead and she somehow tricks him into giving her food to her for free.

The long nose guy balks at that and demands his food for free, but the bastard hasn’t even cleaned his plate. He puts up some bullshit about not liking mushrooms and Sanji obviously calls him on it. 

“Get him Zoro!” the guy orders. 

Zoro. Of course. He’s always thought that the guy’s name was short and it is. Zoro… oh wow. 

Zoro’s head tilts slightly in their direction and he catches an eye roll from the man.

“Get him yourself.” He snorts snarkily, making Sanji’s face split into a grin out of reflex. 

He can’t come up with anything witty to say so he hauls Luffy off under the pretence of making him work. He’s hiding out the back trying to come up with something blindingly clever and attractive to say to the green haired man whose name he’s finally caught when Gin brings in a man who turns out to be his captain and also a massive bastard. 

His return to the front of the restaurant sweeps him up in a fight with Kreig and his men, an opportunity where he doesn’t get to talk to his soul mate much more than a few passing words. He has to defend his ethics, his home and his old man all at once, he frankly doesn’t have time for the complex confession that he needs to give to Zoro. Besides, the guy has one hell of a poker face and almost certainly knows that too. 

Gin brings up “hawk-eyes Mihawk” and Sanji sees Zoro jolt into alertness, his face intense in a way that sends goosebumps running across Sanji’s flesh. He wants to defeat Mihawk and he’s apparently willing to chase the man to the grand line to do it, which pretty much scuppers all hope that Sanji had for convincing the guy to stay at the Baratie with him so that he can repay his debt to Zeff and be with Zoro. 

“You’re fools, you’ll both be killed as soon as you get there.” He says directly to Zoro, hoping to dissuade him.

“True enough but don’t insult us. The day I decided to be the world’s greatest swordsman I gave myself up for dead, nobody calls me a fool but me. I have my reasons.” Zoro says intensely, his gaze challenging Sanji to disagree. 

Sanji breaks his gaze and mutters something about him being stupid. He shouldn’t be surprised, he’s felt waves of fierce determination through their connection before when he’s been asleep and Zoro’s been awake. He had rather vainly hoped that it’d been about meeting him. He sees Zeff’s wide approving grin at the man’s madness and Sanji wants to scream, he’s surrounded by suicidal idiots. 

They make it outside to fight off Kreig’s now fed men only for Zoro to spot the aforementioned Mihawk. He can feel Zoro light up in every fiber of his being but even he can feel the warlord’s power and Zeff’s confirmation that the man is indeed the greatest chills Sanji to the core with fear. 

For his idiocy Zoro challenges him and Mihawk brings out the tiniest knife that Sanji’s ever seen, it’s an insult and Zoro visibly bristles at it. He tries to step forward to drag the idiot back but Zeff stamps his peg leg in his foot and holds him in place. 

“Men like us can’t be stopped, so don’t try.” Zeff breathes to him. Sanji doesn’t know if he’s included in that category or not but when he turns his attention back to Zoro his heart stops. Every technically impressive attack that Zoro tries meets with unyielding resistance, as if Zoro was doing nothing more intimidating than waving three feathers at the man. He’s hopelessly outclassed. 

“He’s going to get killed, I have to stop this!” He hisses to Zeff.

“Then you will be killed too. If he dies then you weren’t meant to meet in this life, that’s all there is to it.” Zeff chastises him quietly. A feeling of despair washes over Sanji, much like when he was on that accursed rock and saw a ship, his hopes rose like bubbles through water only to be popped brutally when the ship passed him by without seeing him. He can’t bear for his entire life to be like that, for Zoro to pass him by without seeing him. He struggles against the peg leg in on top of his shoe but he can’t do anything to escape. 

Even Mihawk is calling Zoro out, urging him to retreat if he wants to live. He silently begs Zoro to agree, to choose to live even if it is to train to beat this man. It is more sensible to retreat and fight better another day than to throw everything away. 

“I… can’t… if I retreat even one step… my vow, my ambition… everything I care about… will be shattered. And my dreams will be lost forever.” He says clearly and loudly. 

Sanji thinks that he can feel his heart breaking. Zoro tries one more attack only for his swords to splinter like toothpicks bar one. He sees Mihawk raise his sword for the killing blow only for Zoro to spin with his arms open to face Mihawk. 

“Wounds on the back are a swordsman’s shame.” He grins as if it’s all one big joke.

“Magnificent.” Mihawk purrs and swings his sword, throwing up a fountain of blood from Zoro’s chest. Sanji screams Zoro’s name but his cry is drowned out by the cries of horror from many other around him, from Zoro’s captain and nakama too. He screams at Zoro just to abandon his stupid dream but it’s too late. He should have told him earlier, should have told him how it feels to live without your dream. It’s not terrible, but perhaps it could have saved Zoro’s life. But he hadn’t said it earlier. Instead Zoro falls and slides into the water, surely dead. 

Sanji feels like he might be sick as Zoro’s two buddies haul him out of the water. His feet are frozen, the rest of his body is still in sheer shock. His fingers touch his heart. Zoro isn’t… Zoro isn’t gone. He can still feel the man’s heart beating, weakly like a butterfly’s wings flapping.

“I left him alive.” Mihawk states. He goes on to say some other crap that Sanji REALLY isn’t listening to because nothing else but those words matters. Zoro is alive. 

He fights Kreig’s crew, and they eventually wins. He fights like a demon, like he’s never fought before, because no matter what happens to him that gentle beating near his own heart reminds him that nothing that happens to him is as hard as what Zoro just went through. 

The others clearly notice the change in him, Zeff certainly does. They even try some ridiculous scheme to get rid of him and when one of Zoro’s mates shows up again inside, of all things, a panda shark, he agrees to go. He says it almost without thinking. Zoro needs him, the idiot clearly won’t survive a month on this ocean without him, let alone the grand line. And Zeff wants him to go, he wants him to chase All Blue for both of them and he knows that he wants Sanji to be near Zoro. It still breaks his heart to leave though and he ends up blubbering like a four year old as he does so but he leaves. 

 

He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Zoro alone much when they get to Arlong park either, they fight with each other because apparently Zoro without his normal level of blood is cranky and Sanji when feeling awkward and at a loss for words is mouthy. He also discovers that arguing with Zoro is fun, the guy gives and good as he gets. And actually fighting side by side with him his magic, they work in harmony (except for when Zoro opens his big mouth and pisses him off). They both kick ass and take names. 

When they eventually rescue the poor flower that is Nami and drive off those horrible fish men the whole island throws them a party. Sanji is grateful for the reprieve but even more grateful that he’ll get a chance to catch Zoro alone. He manages it when Zoro comes for a drink from the barrel that Sanji is sitting by.

He straightens up when he sees Zoro, it’s a perfect opportunity, there’s no one else around and he can really talk to Zoro now. He swallows nervously and starts just as Zoro is filling his mug.

“Were you looking for me?” He asks nervously.

“Uh, no. Just getting a drink.” Zoro frowns at him, clearly not catching his meaning.

“No, no. I don’t mean that. Were you looking for me?” He repeats. He knows that he was hoping most of his life that Zoro was looking for him because he was stuck on a shitty ship in the middle of the ocean unable to leave and search himself. Zoro stands up and gives him a strange look.

“No, did one of the others tell you that I was?” Zoro asks sounding confused. Sanji’s eyes widen, Zoro does not understand him. 

“That’s not what I mean, Zoro. Don’t you recognise me?” He pleads, grabbing Zoro’s arm. The man’s face is surprised and confused but he clearly isn’t pleased about being grabbed. 

“Of course I recognise you, I just met you yesterday you moron. I don’t forget faces that quickly.” Zoro snorts, shaking him off. Sanji stares at Zoro as his heart sinks.

“You don’t recognise me.” He breathes in horror. He’s spent his entire life dreaming about Zoro and the man doesn’t even recognise him. His soul mate has no idea who he is. Could you be an unrequited soul mate? If so that was clearly what he was. 

“Are you drunk?” Zoro questions with a laugh.

“Something like that.” Sanji mutters and runs off. 

He sits on a roof nearby and cries into his knees at the unfairness of it all. Zoro has no idea who he is and there’s clearly no way that Sanji can explain the whole thing without sounding like some crazy obsessed stalker. And moreover Zoro seems to be genuinely disinterested in him, he hadn’t been playing it cool earlier or keeping up his poker face, he just didn’t care what Sanji was saying or doing. He bored the other man. He wants to go home, he wants to go back to Zeff and tell him that it was a terrible mistake. But he can’t, he said his goodbyes and he can hardly return after a day without having found All Blue, just because the love of his life barely knows that he’s alive.

 

He grows to kind of hate Zoro. He fights with him and aggravates him and makes him look bad, anything to get over the injustice of the man not remembering who the hell he is. He’s probably cock-blocking himself in the process but he’s not sure that he could bear to have sex with Zoro, not when he knows what it would mean to him and knowing that it probably would be just sex to Zoro. No, he won’t do that to himself. 

And it’s crazy, but time has a way of not flowing how it should. Sometimes time flies like it’s got one of Franky’s rockets up it’s ass and sometimes it crawls. Like how it does when he sees Zoro launch ahead of him towards Kuma, to sacrifice his own life to save Luffy and by extension, him. And then when the hilt of Zoro’s sword smacks him in the side and knocks him unconscious time leaps forward to when he wakes up. 

 

He stares at the sky above Thriller Bark for a few seconds before the past catches up with him and remembers that Zoro sacrificed himself instead of him. He scrambles to his feet and places his hand over his heart. Weak fluttery beating is all that greets him, almost as bad as when Zoro fought Mihawk. He looks around in terror but sees no Zoro. He takes all of one step before he sees Zoro’s swords discarded on the ground, almost as if they’d been left for him. Why… would Zoro do that unless he wasn’t planning on coming back for them?

Zoro’s words about having long ago given himself up for dead ring through his ears. That bastard! He might be alive now but who knows how long he could hold on for?! He closes his eyes and imagines the weak pull in his chest like a line and sprints off after it. He skids over crumbled walls and huge raised slabs of pavement jutting up towards the sky as evidence of Moira’s carnage. 

“Where is that bastard?!” He curses to himself before skidding to a halt as his internal thread that leads to Zoro veers off to the left. He looks that way to see a shock of Zoro’s green hair over the tip of a wall. He leaps it and skids down the wall.

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing?!” He calls to Zoro who is standing in the middle of a clearing of debris with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Where did that warlord go?” He asks, getting closer to Zoro. He looks around, there’s no sign of Kuma but there’s blood everywhere, splattered up and misted on every surface. Did Zoro do this to Kuma? But he’d been at death’s door last night too. And… and his swords were back where he’d woken up, not with Zoro. So how…?

That’s when he gets a closer look at Zoro and it stops him in his tracks. Zoro is bleeding from… from everywhere. Every inch of his skin seems to be oozing blood from the very pores, his eyelids are crusted with blood and his ears are leaking the stuff. It drips down his chest and runs off of his elbows. 

“Oi! What’s in the hell is with all that blood?! Oi, are you still alive? Where is that guy?! What happened here?!” He demands as terror clutches at his heart.

Zoro doesn’t look at him though, he just stares straight ahead. God, even his eyes are red and bleeding. And he’s shaking like a leaf in the wind. 

“A… absolutely… nothing.” Zoro states shakily, trembling with fatigue. His eyes roll backwards then, and as if he’d been waiting all night to say that to him and is now done, he keels backwards. Sanji yelps and catches him with the ruins of his shirt before Zoro hits the ground. Gently he lowers Zoro onto the ripped knees of his suit and cradles him in his arms. 

“CHOPPPER!” He screams at the top of his lungs and clutches Zoro tighter. He presses his hand to Zoro’s heart and feels the weakening flutter of the beating organ below his fingertips echoing in his own chest. Zoro is fading fast.

“CHOPPER!” He screams again. 

“No, no, no. You can’t leave me here Zoro. I can’t take it. I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. You can’t leave me alone Zoro, you’re part of me.” He sobs desperately as he shakes Zoro.

“So you have to live, you hear me?!” He shouts, shaking Zoro. 

He leans over and presses his chest to Zoro’s as if the beating of his own heart might encourage Zoro’s to pick up. He doesn’t know how this link between them works, or if it’s all in his head. But he tries to force every ounce of energy and life he has through it to Zoro because he can’t lose the moss headed idiot. 

“Sanji? Where are you?” Chopper’s voice calls distantly.

“OVER HERE!” He yells, sitting up quickly and brushing the tears from his eyes, he can’t stand to have any of the others see him cry, they wouldn’t understand. Chopper freaks out when he catches sight of Zoro and all of the blood sprayed around the area. But with a shot of this and a dose of that Zoro’s heart becomes a little stronger and beats a little more securely in Sanji’s chest.

Zoro falls into a deep sleep under Chopper’s medical care, he has a lot to heal after all. Chopper wastes no time in telling everyone how near Zoro came to death. Sanji doesn’t need to hear that, he knows. He spends his time loading the ship with supplies, the crew even has a party that Zoro sleeps through. Sanji isn’t worried, with every beat Zoro’s heart gets a little stronger and he’s getting closer to waking up. 

When he starts to feel Zoro’s sleep become lighter he takes over watching Zoro from the tired Chopper. He rests his feet on Zoro’s bed and refrains from smoking just to give Zoro’s stupid lungs a rest.

He feels the unfurling in his chest of Zoro awakening. He glances over at the marimo whose eyes are shut still.

“I know you’re awake dumbass.” He mutters and Zoro’s eyes slide open at that.

“How do you always know?” Zoro asks, his voice rough. Sanji hands him a glass of water and doesn’t answer. Zoro hands him the glass back. He leans over to take it from Zoro who is clearly still too weak to bend to put it down himself, and weaker still to be okay with admitting that. He has to pause and close his eyes because this is all a little too much for him. He breathes out shakily, Zoro is ok. He’s going to be fine. He knows that his emotions are probably written all over his face but he’s too emotional right now to suppress them.

A touch of warm skin on his jaw makes him nearly leap out of his skin, Zoro is touching him and looking at him strangely.

“Am I dreaming?” He asks slowly. 

“What?” Sanji snaps confused, ducking out of the way of Zoro’s hand.

“I thought… I was dreaming. I was, earlier- but I thought I was still. I was dreaming… about you. And I woke up and here you are.” Zoro mumbles sounding slightly groggy. 

Sanji stares at Zoro, his breath and his heart caught in his throat. Surely Zoro doesn’t mean that dream, not after all this time?

“But it wasn’t you. I mean, it was… and it wasn’t.” Zoro frowns vaguely. 

“You were a cook.” Zoro says thoughtfully.

“That wasn’t a dream, stupid. I am a cook.” Sanji says dismissively, looking away out of embarrassment, he desperately wants to believe that the cruel hope that had blossomed inside of him just then didn’t show on his face.

“No, shut up. You weren’t you, you weren’t the Sunny’s cook. You were a cook in a restaurant, but… but you were dead.” Zoro frowns, looking at him like he’s not quite sure who he is.

“What?! I’m not the one that just nearly died here! You-” He shouts but Zoro actually grabs his face and covers his mouth.

“If I don’t say it I’ll forget, dreams are like that. I… I was helping you, I think. I could see you, but you were a ghost. We were… and then… then I died. I got hit in the chest with something big, like a train or something. Then… then there was a whirlwind…” Zoro frowns, as if things in his memory are becoming disjointed and confusing.

“A whirlwind?!” Sanji yelps, grabbing Zoro’s hand away from his mouth and staring at him wide eyed. Zoro’s eyes sharpen at that and his eyes narrow suspiciously.

“Yeah… we were being pulled apart… I didn’t dream that did I?” Zoro frowns sitting up.

“But… I remember Kuma and… that can’t be right.” He says sounding confused.

“I- I don’t…” Sanji mutters looking off to the side. His first instinct is panic, he’s had too many close calls with Zoro where he’s wanted to confess and it seemed like Zoro remembered only to start and realise that Zoro wasn’t remembering at all. Just because Zoro dreamt of a whirlwind doesn’t mean that he had the same dream that Sanji’s had his entire life. He stands up quickly and tries to back away from Zoro, he doesn’t want to be here. 

Zoro’s quick hand snags him by the tie and yanks him down. Zoro gives him a scrutinising scowl for a second before jerking his tie tighter and kissing him. He freezes half standing and half crouching where Zoro pulled him as the marimo assaults his mouth, his body happens to be smarter than his brain though and responds. Zoro’s lips are warm and his tongue is slick against his own, it’s only when Sanji tastes the blood in Zoro’s mouth that he has the sense to pull away. 

He presses the sleeve of his hoodie against his mouth shakily, this is a dangerous game with Zoro and he’s not willing to play. He can’t take Zoro forgetting again and he’s not willing to risk Zoro’s health for a kiss. 

 

They’re a few days out to sea when the dream wakes him again, it doesn’t always wake him but sometimes it does. He hears Zoro’s name echo around the bunkroom, no doubt having slipped from his lips. His arm is raised, his hand reaching for an invisible hand. He sighs and sits up in his hammock with balance perfected from half a lifetime at sea. He stares at his palm in the darkness, still feeling Zoro’s fingers slipping from his. The door to the bunkroom slams open, framing Zoro in the light of the hallway. 

“You woke me up!” Zoro accuses loudly.

“SHH!” Sanji hisses back equally loudly and runs out of the room dragging Zoro with him and closing the door behind them. He doesn’t need Zoro waking their nakama with talk like that.

“You’re supposed to be resting in the infirmary, moron. Especially after what you’ve been through.” He orders, looking at Zoro’s bandaged body.

“You woke me up. Every night now I’m having that dream, and you’re having it too! I heard you call my name!” Zoro repeats, staring down at him with laser precision. 

“Shut up, shithead.” Sanji grumbles and grabs Zoro’s hand and starts pulling him back to the infirmary. Unfortunately Zoro has always had the upper hand when it comes to upper body strength and even in his weakened state he’s able to drag Sanji back across the floor towards him. 

“You’re having the dreams too, but you’re not acting any different from normal.” Zoro says thoughtfully, his grip on Sanji’s hand too tight to escape from.

“Don’t damage my hand, asshole.” He mutters trying to extricate himself from Zoro’s grip, unwilling to talk about such a painful subject as his romantic notion of being Zoro’s soul mate.

“How long have you been having the dreams Sanji? Longer than me I’ll bet.” Zoro continues, as if they’re both participating in this conversation.

“Stop bringing that up, will you?” Sanji finally says to Zoro. 

“Definitely not.” Zoro shoots back and shoves him against the wall. Zoro holds him there and kisses him breathless. Sanji doesn’t want this, he knows that if Zoro changes his mind his heart will break and never heal but… but Zoro is just too tempting at it feels too right. He opens up his mouth for Zoro and the swordsman wastes no time in pressing the advantage, he runs a hand up his side and holds him there. He’s never felt so small, or indeed so important. Zoro pulls back, drawing a whimper from Sanji’s lips and a needy shudder from his body.

“How long?” Zoro asks again, still close enough to Sanji to practically paint the question onto his lips with his own. 

“My entire life.” Sanji answers honestly, something inside of him un-tensing with the release of the truth.

Zoro pulls back and stares at him with wide horrified eyes. 

“How- why did you never say anything?!” the swordsman demands much too loudly.

“I tried! But you didn’t remember me, and the one time I tried to bring it up you accused me of being drunk!” He shouts back also too loudly. 

Zoro regards him with wide horrified eyes from across the hallway. Sanji can hear his nakama stirring from all the shouting so he strides away past the bunkroom and out onto the deck. He pulls out a smoke and is about to light it when Zoro’s hand grabs his wrist.

“But… but every time I wake up from that dream I feel like I’ve had my heart ripped away from me, I feel hollow. And I feel this… feeling in my chest all the time, like someone’s pulling me around.” Zoro says staring into his eyes with scrutiny.

“Yeah, well. Welcome to my life.” Sanji mutters bitterly, snatching his hand back from Zoro as he turns his back to the man. With shaky hands he lights his cigarette. He breathes in the calming smoke and chews tensely on the end of the cigarette. 

He hears a clatter and a thud behind him. For a second he thinks that Zoro has fainted until he turns around to see Zoro on his knees before him with his head bowed to the floor. 

“What the hell are you-?” He starts confused.

“FORGIVE ME!” Zoro yells into the grass.

“God, be quiet! What the hell?” Sanji hisses shushing Zoro. But Zoro stays bowed on the ground. Sanji’s neck prickles with the heat of awkwardness, this situation is just so goddamn weird.

“I didn’t mean to forget you, I didn’t… I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that I made you feel like you were so lost every time you woke up, I’m sorry!” Zoro apologises loudly. 

“Geez, it’s okay. I forgive you or whatever, just get up off the ground and stop yelling.” Sanji says quickly, trying to pull Zoro up.

“It’s not like I’ve ever had a night where I’ve not had that dream, it’s fine. I don’t know any different.” He says trying to comfort the moss-brain, but Zoro only looks up at him with damp eyes. The idiot even springs up, catching him in a crushing hug that must hurt like hell for Zoro’s poor injured chest. 

“Lemme go!” he squeaks trying to squirm away. 

Zoro thankfully loosens his grip and lets his hands fall to Sanji’s hips, making him blush. 

“Geez, okay, cut it out Zoro.” Sanji snaps, pulling Zoro’s hands off of him, noticing all too clearly Zoro’s dark interested eyes.

“But… don’t you want…?” Zoro asks slowly and uncertainly.

“Sure I do,” Sanji answers knowing full well what Zoro means. “But, this is a bit much for me. I’d resigned myself to you never remembering so… this is kind of an overload. And you’re still injured remember?” he points out, jabbing Zoro in the chest and making the other man wince.

“And besides,” He smiles coyly at Zoro, “it’s not like either of us is going anywhere is it?” 

 

___  
EPILOGUE  
~~~

Sanji is sprawled out on the beach whilst the waves lap at the shore, he’s not too far from the pawprint that slammed him there onto the sand but he’s already panicked and ran around looking for the others only to deduce that they’re not anywhere nearby.

He can tell anyway, the pull in his chest is distant in a way that suggests that Zoro is several thousand miles away at least. Inside his chest he feels Zoro’s consciousness unfurl again as the man wakes up in what is no doubt a similar paw print elsewhere.

“It’s not like either of us is going anywhere.” He parrots bitterly to the sky. 

“You, are a shitty idiot Sanji.” He assures himself loudly and smacks his head on the sand again for good measure. He sits up and looks at the piece of paper in his hand that slowly slides in the opposite direction to Zoro. 

“Well… how long can it really take to get back to Sabody anyway?” He says out loud to himself, after all, it took him only six months from the Baratie, and if this island’s weird structure and the heart shaped rainbow above it are any clue he’s still on the grand line.

“And, even if it takes a while,” he says optimistically as he stands up and dusts himself off ready to explore the island, “how bad could this place be for a little while?”


End file.
